Hey Dad

Perhaps it is because it is still fresh, or maybe it is because I just went to the the doctors and had to get a MRI (a tale for another day), but I thought it was time to share with you.

My dad died. I am probably going to write about this a lot. Or maybe not at all. Just this one time. I am notorious for starting something and not finishing; the classic epitome of over promising and underachieving. This isn't going to be some sad story. Or maybe it will. But I need to remember everything about the last five months. And I need to remember it in laughter. Because that was my dad, a mass of lightheartedness and laughter. Even through the pain, the endless hospital stays, and countless procedures, my dad still managed to joke and laugh with his family.

The quick wit and snark was strong too.

They told us that he had dementia. To a daughter who prides herself on being remembered as the favorite, this was a fucking nightmare. (Yes guys, this was all about me.) I will get more in to that later.  Maybe it was the pride that nagged him. Being talked to like an invalid by a man several decades younger in a lab coat didn't sit well with Dad. The long drawn out sounds of "misssssttterrr Aaaanntttooonio. What is today's date?" or "whhooooo is the pressssident?"; the latter of which he never really grasped as we all agreed that the truth was too much for the old man. When the doctor would dare to ask his name he would stick his tongue out, respond with "ice cream" or "bingo" throwing the medical team in to a frenzy. Or the time that the nurse attempted to be friendly, sharing the fact that her mother shared the same birth date as my father, only for him to respond "what the fuck do I care".

In the end, he demanded his cream of wheat be buttered and slathered in maple syrup, followed by copious glasses of milk drank like it was IPA winner at the Great American Beer Festival.

This is not a long post, just a post to remember my Dad.

Because its Monday

After an unintentional hiatus, I decided to come back on to the keyboard and type something that had nothing to do with Immigration Law. So here I am.
After this unintentional hiatus, I have come to appreciate my blog, my rough and unedited writing, and to toot my own horn.

While I was gone, I received the news that someone I love is dying faster than I would want them to go. It's a certainty that we will die, but the time frame is what I hate. This dwelling on time forced me to dwell on this word we use, "love".
I had a grandmother that died almost three years ago. It was sad, a lot of people cried. But in an effort to maintain transparency, I only cried because she was my father's mother. Yes, in the last years of her life I had gotten to know this woman through and through, more so than when she was virilent. But it was not until she was close to the end that she seemed to care on who I was and whether or not I came to see her. It was nice to see her so humbled, and in turn, creating an emphatic and humbling experience within me. But the day she died, it was not sadness for me or for my loss, but a sadness for my father who's complex relationship with his own mother has yet to be unearthed. I often wondered if he was sad, regretful, angry? But I have never dared to ask him. And it was for those reasons that I was sad, that I cried. Not for the love of a woman, but for the selfish answers that I will never have answered, and for the father who couldn't seem to bring himself to visit his own mother in life.

Now it is me that is legitimately crying. This will be the first "family" member that I have loved, and will now lose. Perhaps I have lost this person a long time ago. I had stopped my frequent visits to Texas years ago, and only recently resumed on a vacation a few months ago. A wave of guilt went over me. These were people I loved, that loved me. These were people that were excited to receive my call, and embraced me with the largest hugs I have ever felt. And now one of them is leaving sooner than I would want.
I got to visit with him one last time. He sat up at the table, proudly showed off his PICC Line, and told me how the next time I visited, he was going to kill and grill a goat in my honor. He still looked the same, just slightly slower and with a bit more white hairs. That is how I want to keep it.

You will have to excuse the "dear diary" entry. But its been quite some time and there is so much I want to say. I will have to cut it here. I can't seem to continue without shedding a tear.

My Final Wishes

Let me tell you how it's going to go...

There is going to be a huge party! With tequila, chicken chow mein, enchiladas, tacos, beef chow fun, pizza (from round table) and caprese sandwiches. There is going to be a Mexican conjunto playing nothing but Norteno (NOT GANG NORTENO. Region Norteno) music, and then I want an hour of Sid Vicious, Siouxsie and the Banshees, New Order, Weezer, and then Schindler's List and Gone with the Wind playing on a huge screen. Maybe even a clip from Downfall.

There won't be a mass, there won't be an open casket...that shit freaks me the fuck out. And quite honestly, I want people to remember me for my Nazi humor and off colored jokes rather than some gray skinned corpse that for once in her life is quiet.

I can't say that my babe will say some words because after watching this documentary the other day I made this promise that I would wait for him to die first and then I would follow...details to come in the next blog.

I don't want anyone to cry...well...that's a lie. Crying is ok. But I want them all to dance, eat, and be really drunk.

I don't care much about cremation or burying, as long as I am with the babe.

Wear black, I love when people wear black...it looks so fancy.

MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: DON'T FORGET THE TEQUILA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My dad and his friend

I waited days before calling my aunt to check on the status of a godfather. The week prior her email updates were almost daily, with hopeful and optimistic news. But after the fourth day of no update, I decided it was time to call.

"The cancer has spread, the chemo will shrink it, but it won't be cured."

It was all I heard. I thought of the last phone conversation before the news of the cancer, when I told him I would be in Austin and stopping for a visit during my trip. His response "we will have to make some food, its going to be a big day". And then I thought of the very last conversation with him, the day before his surgery, when he told my dad "I hope you make it down here."

It was a sad and confusing moment after finishing the call with my aunt. I went to my parents and broke the news to my dad. Borrowing my sensitivity from him, I knew he would have tears streaming before I finished my sentence.

"I can't see him like this, its not how I want to remember him."

I thought of my childhood and my first impression of my father and godfather. Two strong Mexican men, beers and smiles in hand. Nights of music, dancing, maybe even a serenade projected by the one to the other. I thought of the wedding in Mexico, when my father, in a state of inebriation, bought my godfather roses and mariachi serenade in the plaza as we headed back to the hotel. I can still feel the soreness on my sides from the laughter at the site of their macho Mexican bromance.

They were great friends, they were young, they were men.

Is this the the happy ending we are all hoping for? No, because someone I care about is going to die sooner than I would like. But what will hurt the most, is the anguish and sadness that will come from my dad. I wont be able to fix it, I can't take it away.