OF LOVE AND LOSS
One of my favorite childhood stories, as told by my Mom, is of when I was 4 years old and she and dad were dating. I “sat him down” for a talk when he came over to visit me (the excuse to come see her – what I believe is the cutest thing ever).
She was in her room getting ready (and listening, obvi) and I walked him over to our little sofa, asked him to sit down, and sat next to him. The following is an abbreviated version of how that conversation went:
Me: “Um… Do you love my mommy?”
Him: … “Um, we’re getting to know each other and I like her very much”
Me: “And um… will you and mommy get married?”
Him: “Well, maybe…”
Me: “And… Um… Can I call you Daddy?”
Him: “You can call him whatever you want to”
Our fates were sealed after this day…
And then came the wedding day. It was a civil ceremony at a Miami City Hall. I remember the little blue and white striped dress with a decorative apron I was wearing and the huge black leather couch I sat in that swallowed me up while we waited for “our turn”. I stood in the middle as they signed their names on the ledger and I placed their rings on their fingers as they declared we were all married now (read: we were now a family). My little heart soared!
You see, I knew very early on that I didn’t have a dad, for a while it was just us two girls against the world! My mom and father had divorced before my second birthday, and he was not involved in my life afterward (not that I could remember it anyway). My mom even mentioned at one point that once I heard my cousin (who is just a few months older than me) call my uncle “Dad” and I asked her if I could call him Dad, too, and she said no (hahaha – children can be so cruel!). Both my uncles were my father-figures until Emilio came along.
He had his faults, but he had his own way of showing how much he cared for us. His love language was definitely expressed by giving gifting. My pre-teen and teenage years memories are filled with days where he would give me a little money in the afternoons for after school snacks, or picked guavas or cashew fruits for me because he knew how much I loved them.
Now, all we have are pictures and memories. Dad passed away August of 2018 and it’s still pretty hard to think about that day and the ones that led up to it. Life, it turns out, suffers no one, fools or not.
By 2018, Mom and Dad had been separated for over 10 years and since divorced, but still friends – he used to tell her they had 3 kids so they were stuck together – and both lived in the same town and saw each other regularly.
In the summer of 2018, my brother and his girlfriend had just relocated to Punta Cana for a new job he’d recently been offered, and Giusseppe and I were finalizing our plans to move from Chicago to Atlanta (more on that later). On my end of the world, I was already starting to lose weight (had dropped 35lbs) and feeling excited about the noticeable changes in my body that made me feel more athletic and fit. I was also interviewing with two companies that were in the industry, and trying to keep my ish together at work at the same time I was obsessively looking for rental apartments for our move while working on not freaking out that my mom was about to undergo a very much needed surgery in early August.
Dad used to meet my sister every morning to wait with her for her bus to work. So that Saturday morning when he didn’t show, she knew something was wrong and went to his small apartment nearby. What she found was traumatic to her in so many ways it breaks my heart. Unbeknown to us at the time, he had had a stroke, but what she saw through the window to his apartment was her dad laying down on a pool of blood with a broken nose. She called for help, the door was kicked in, and he was rushed to the nearest hospital. She didn’t sleep for days and wouldn’t leave his side and kept his head propped up so he could breathe while he slept.
My brother rushed back to Cabrera, and I was furtively trying not to have a breakdown in a WHOLE other country – my worst fears had just materialized when I got the call to let me know what had happened. I asked my mom if I needed to come down to the Dominican Republic, but at the time they had stabilized him and was responding to the meds. I was keeping Olga, our older sister – his eldest daughter from a previous marriage -, informed as best I could.
On Monday, I gave my two-weeks notice and cried in front of my team as I told them my dad wasn’t well and that I feared he would die. Two days later, I had to ask my boss for time off to be with my family and see my dad. I had just hung up the phone with my mom, where she soberly told me I had to come down. I talked to Olga the whole time I was booking flights, she and her husband were coming too and we would meet in Miami and fly down together. Giusseppe was staying behind to finish packing up our lives for our cross-country move.
That Friday, I left O’Hare Airport at 5 am, the whole time praying that he would hold on, that I would get to tell him how much I loved him, that God would let me say goodbye. I got to Miami International Airport around 7:30 am and ran to meet Olga and her husband at the gate to our flight to the DR. As I was approaching the gate, I spied her walking towards me. We hugged. She stepped back and wouldn’t meet my eyes as she touched the little elephant pendant I wore on my necklace (a gift from Dad for my 16th birthday), and with a crack in her voice said: “He’s gone”.
What? How? Why?… Why?… Why?…
My brother was with him when he took his last breath. The only thing that was keeping me together was knowing that he wasn’t alone when it happened and that he was no longer in pain.
I cried to our plane, on our flight, and then the 5-hour ride to Cabrera where friends had assisted our family selflessly and expeditiously with the arrangements.
I remember my young sister’s face, she was in such shock and so heartbroken she could barely speak; my brother’s face crumpled when he saw me and we cried together as we’ve never had in our lives. My mom, my rock, my lighthouse in the storm, hugged me so hard I could barely breathe like she wanted to squeeze the pain out of me and take it unto herself so we would stop hurting – I couldn’t bear to look him in that casket.
Why?… Why won’t you wake up? Please wake up, Daddy! Please let me hug you and tell you how much I love you… Please don’t go…
The next few days were filled with calls and messages from friends new and old. Everywhere we went people would express their condolences and it was so heartwarming to see how he’d touched so many lives.
Life suffers no one. And it will go on.
The grief comes and goes these days. I can barely believe he’s been gone 2 years now. That he won’t get to walk me down the aisle in the big beach wedding Giusseppe and I have been planning to celebrate our marriage with, that he won’t touch my pregnant belly when Giusseppe and I grow our family, and hug me and tell me how beautiful I look, that my children won’t get to meet Abuelo Lilio (as I’m sure they would’ve called him) and he won’t get to hold them or tickle them or kiss them or make sure they’re breathing while they’re sleeping as he did with us all, breaks my heart every time I think about it.
And then I remember all the funny and awesome stories of our life together. How proud he looked on my university graduation day, how he used to call Giusseppe “Jose” because he had a hard time pronouncing his name at first, his thick Cuban accent, how much he loved my brother’s son, Diego, and that beautiful picture of the three of them together; how he would let me sneak into their bed even after my mom had explicitly said no to this, and how he would lay on his side, back to her, to hide me so she couldn’t tell I was there, how the last time we spoke with my mom propping up the phone to his face so we could video chat, he told her how beautiful I looked, to take care, he loves me; how I joked with him and told him that if he wanted a nose-job that bad, we could’ve found him a good plastic surgeon, that I loved him, to hang in there.
I’ve dreamed of him a couple of times since then. This past week I saw him so happy and healthy and smiling in my dream that I felt so relieved – he wasn’t in pain, he didn’t hurt. He looked beautiful.
Life suffers no one, and it can house painful, sad experiences, and have room for wonderful, happy moments, too. And I’m grateful and lucky for them all.
We only lose the ones we love when we stop remembering them and talking about them (the Disney movies Coco and Onward had me in TEARS!). My children will get to know their grandpa through his stories. They will love him, too.
Carol
I love sharing fun facts and reading anything I can get my hands on. I live for wine, movies, books, and knitting! Travel and baking are my passions!
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