humans have meandered into this page.
|
|
|
It is Friday August 26, 1977. I am a young boy, barely nine years
of age. We, my parents, my two sisters, and I live in Rio Piedras,
Puerto Rico, one of the towns adjacent to San Juan. We live right on
the border, on Avenida Central, which is the dividing line between
the two cities. It is always rainy and muggy here. My parents own
and run a Chinese restaurant, which also doubled as our home. My
father is an excellent chef, among our friends he is often referred
to as Si-Fu, the Chinese term for master. It is the evening,
after siesta. My father is in the kitchen working as he does every
day. Today would be different. My father, the model of health, is
starting to have spasms. As things worsen, my mother takes him to
the hospital. She leaves my older sister,
Teresa, now thirteen, in charge of
Aileen, my seven-year-old sister and I. For the first time in my
life, I feel threatened.
Hours pass. We don't hear a word. I don't remember if we ate dinner. It doesn't matter. We sit patiently in the dining room of the restaurant, towards the back, where the restrooms are. As the night passes, we line up some chairs to lie down and drift to sleep, still not knowing what happened. It is Saturday August 27, 1977. It is the morning after. The phone rings. We crowd around the phone. My sister picks up the receiver and answers. It is my mother. Numb from the shock, my sister repeats my mother's precise words, "Don't tell the little ones; father is dead..." |
It was a stroke. In his deathbed, my mother promises him that he won't have to worry about us. She has been true to that promise.
Soon people start to flood in. It seems like everyone I know, all of our friends, are here. I remembered wondering if they didn't have anything else to do. I don't know where it was I learned what all the rituals are for death, but they were there. Sometime during that day, I remember picking up one of my toys, though I can't remember which one. I then realized that I would no longer get to play with my father. It was then that I started to understand and started to weep.
The next few days passed like a roller coaster. We had funeral services in Puerto Rico. We then flew to Miami and had funeral services there as well. That's where he is buried, right off Calle Ocho in Miami.
I remembered that days after we returned to Puerto Rico, my mom was eating some leftovers. It was foul, yet she had a hard time throwing it out. You see, it was prepared before he passed, maybe even by him. I suppose each one of us had to find a way to let go and this was hers.
Months later my mom is trying to get some black and white pictures of my father framed in acrylic. There would be four of them, one for each us. I remembered being at the particular store, Sears, and hearing my mom and a friend of ours arguing with the attendant. They had lost the photographs. I'm not sure why we didn't have the negatives, but we didn't. My mom had to take a wallet-sized photo and had them reprint them. Naturally, the new photographs turn out a bit blurrier, unsubstantial. One might even say ghostly. Coincidentally, this very picture is sitting only a few feet away as I'm typing, over my shoulder. No symbolism there. But seriously folks, I'm not superstitious.
About a month before his death, my father had written a journal entry. It has been years since I read it. I believe he actually wrote it in English; he had studied English briefly in Hong Kong. He mentions a number of things that forebode his death. His feeling tired for instance. Sometimes I wonder if he somehow knew. I suppose that I'll never know. I should read the journal again.
Sometime during that year, my Catholic school, Madre Cabrini, has a mass honoring my father's death. My sisters and I participate in the mass. I believe my little sister, Aileen, had her first communion that day as opposed to the arranged ceremony for later that year.
At the end of that school year, we moved to Florida. It was easy to detach myself after that… a different house… a different language… a different life. I feel guilty admitting this, but I rarely ever thought about him after that.
Sunday June 15, 1986 - I'm graduating high school today. I'm walking around and saying goodbye to all of my friends and I wonder when I'll see them again. I pose with my family for pictures and try not to notice that my father is conspicuously missing. Today will be tough… aside from graduating today, it is also Father's Day.
I also notice that whenever my birthday falls on a Sunday, it is also Father's Day. Does it serve to haunt or remind?
Sunday August 27, 1995 - It's just past midnight on a Sunday. I'm at, my friend, Len's place; he is taking a smoke break. We're chatting outside under an empty carport and I mention that it's the anniversary of my father's death.
Now that's a strange term isn't it? Anniversary. Particularly to mark a person's death. Don't we normally think of anniversaries as joyous occasions? Is there a more proper term?
We chat about it. I remember it well. I was twenty-seven. He died eighteen years ago. Eighteen! A child born that date would be an adult today. It was so long ago. I mentioned that I only spoke Chinese and Spanish when he died and I speak mostly English now. What language would I speak with him? I wasn't even sure what I would call him… Would I call him Pop? …Dad? …Father?
I was nine when he died. I had lived twice as long without him than with him. That seemed like a milestone. I silently wondered if I was responding to societal and cultural expectation of death. How do Chinese mourn? How do Americans?
I then realized that in a strange way there is no loss. I was so young when he died that I never really understood life with him. It is kind of like growing up without a brother. No loss, simply never there. Whenever the topic comes up in conversation people always say, "Oh, I'm sorry." Yet it was simply a fact of life. I'm right-handed. I have brown eyes. My father is dead.
I'm on the phone with my sister Aileen, who is one of my best friends. We are chatting about different things. Sometime during the conversation I ask her about it. I ask her if she ever thinks about him. She replies that she does during the holidays. We continue to talk about him and the conversation eventually drifts.
At least we can talk about it; it's no longer taboo. Maybe after all these years we can finally weep. Not out of social and cultural obligation, not out of Chinese notions of ancestor worship, but out of the real loss that we both experienced.
My other sister, Terry, to whom I'm not close, had a son in 1995. I wonder if she thought about our father on that day. If I were to ask, I'm not so sure that I would get a straight answer from her.
Thursday January 8, 1998 - I'm on vacation. It is a Thursday morning. I'm driving down to Miami from Deerfield Beach where my sister lives and where I happen to be staying. I was meeting Iva, one of my college friends, for lunch. She ends up treating me for lunch [Thanks, Iva. I'll pick up the next one!] We chat in her office for a while after lunch, and she also shows me the noose, which I gave her a few months earlier. After that, I go back to the school, to look around, see the campus, and pick up some souvenirs.
Then, I go to visit my father. It'll be the first time I go there alone. I drive towards the cemetery. I can never remember precisely where it is. I find it and then start looking for a flower store. I figured, cemetery... flowers, business should boom, right? Well, there were no flower stores in the vicinity. As a matter of fact, I eventually find myself heading back towards the shop near the university. Naturally, it was closed down. I was getting pretty frustrated then, and I was thinking, "Who would know if I don't actually get flowers?" But the truth was that I would know and that I was doing this as much for me as out of respect for him. I eventually find a lady who sells bunches off the street, typically quite common in Miami unless, of course, you happen to be looking for one.
So I get an assorted bunch and head back towards the cemetery. Before I park the car, I'm already in tears. Why? I had come with my family many times without feeling an iota of emotion. Why now?
As it turns out, when visiting with my family I couldn't feel the emotion. This was because, with them, we don't focus on our individual relationship with him. We think about his role and the Chinese implications of ancestor worship. We don't see the man; we see the figure.
Today, for the first time, I saw the man. For the first time I thought about us. It suddenly made sense. I wanted him to have been the one to teach me to drive. I wanted to have heard him reprimand me when I stepped out of line. I wanted him to have been there when I graduated first high school and then college. I want him to be here when I get married… when I become a father. As insignificant as it may seem, I never heard him say that he was proud of me. And for the first time, I actually need to hear it. I feel cheated and angry, but at least I'm not numb anymore.
I sit there in the grim silence thinking for a little while. As I'm leaving, I'm still in tears, but it's okay. Ironically, life feels more complete now that I realize how empty it has been.
Tonight, I'm having dinner with my friend Ana and her husband, Julius. Although I don't tell them about it [of course, she's probably reading this right now], they brighten my mood considerably. Aren't friends wonderful?
It is not a simple fact of life that my father is dead. You're not guaranteed a brother. You're not guaranteed to be right-handed. You're guaranteed at least a biological father, and somewhere along the line I've been cheated.
I now look at this picture over my shoulder, and I see a stranger. I can barely remember his voice. I can hardly recall his mannerisms. I can only imagine what he would be like today. Oddly enough, I miss this stranger.
I love you, Dad. I wish you were here.
January 23, 1998