Many people don’t even know he’s dead. But he is.
His name was Raul and he died June 30th, 1992; I was 6 years old.
I don’t know what’s harder, what hurts more; having your dad die so early on in life, or having him around for years and then losing him. I’d imagine the pain is the same, the only thing that changes are the circumstances and the way we remember him and grieve.
I was a daddy’s girl. I loved spending time with him when I was little and I have so many vivid memories of the two of us.
I look a lot like him. And a lot of things I do I got from him.
I love horror movies and I have to watch them at night with all the lights in the house turned off. I get that from my dad. Every Saturday when I was little me and him would stay up till all hours of the night watching Chucky, Jason, Pinhead, Freddy Krueger and many more. It was our bonding time because my mom scares easily and hated watching those movies. He would try to scare me but I never fell for it, and he liked that I was so brave.
I love to read, as you all know. I get that from my dad too. Except that where I read romance novels, he used to read UFO books, lol. He strongly believed in aliens and flying saucers, and I guess that little part of me that believes in them too I get from him as well.
Sometimes when I laugh or smile I bite down on my tongue. I wasn’t aware I did this until a few years back when my mom commented on it. My dad used to do that. And though my mother’s comment was filled with disgust when she informed me of my habit, I took it as a good thing. Now, everytime I catch myself doing it I think of my dad and it makes me smile even more.
I also have this weird quirk with food, besides me being really picky that is. (LOL) If I’m eating a meal and there’s something that I especially like, I’ll eat around it. I’ll eat everything in my plate and save the thing for last. My dad did that too. My mom used to cook us yellow rice with little Vienna sausages inside (the Carmela brand because it’s the only brand I eat) and we used to eat all the rice and leave the pieces of Vienna sausages till the end. I still do that, with almost everything I eat. It’s the reason why I peel the skin off of friend chicken, lol. I love chicken skin. HAHA, what a fat thing to say!
I’m guessing my love for carnivals also comes from him in a way. He used to always take me to the carnival (just the two of us) and he’d get me a Piña Colada and cotton candy. I remember that everytime we went to the carnival we would save the Ferris wheel for last. We’d get on it together and when the cage stopped at the top he would start rocking the cage back and forth. Now mind you, this was the late 80’s and early 90’s those cages creaked and groaned for any little reason, and my dad was a big man (I also get my fatness from him, hehe) I would tell him to stop, that he was going to break the Ferris wheel. He would just rock harder and then I’d start crying and beg him to stop, I used to say he was going to kill us. Yes, even back then I was dramatic, people. He would finally stop and laugh his head off, and my crying would turn to laughter, and I’d laugh right along with him. He would say to me that he would never let anything happen to me because I was his little girl.
Oh, I remember he used to freak me out on purpose! It was so funny. When my mom fried fish, my dad (who loved food and ate anything) would pop the fish eyes in his mouth and call me, and when I went up to him he would stick out his tongue with the two little fish eyes on them--a la Bettlejuice--and I would scream. He’d laugh and eat the fish eyes…yuck! I used to tell him, “You’re gross, daddy.” He would laugh and assure me fish eyes were good.
His favorite thing to eat was morcillas, blood sausages stuffed with rice and spices. I’ve never liked them, still don’t. But whenever I see them or smell them I think of my dad because he used to love eating them. Everytime we went to a place where they sold pernil (roasted pork shoulder) I would get pernil with cuerito (the crispy top) and he would get his morcillas.
I remember sitting on his lap Saturday mornings while he sat on my grandma’s rocking chair, and we would do La 7 semejanzas on the newspaper. We had to spot the 7 differences in the two pictures that were almost identical. My dad’s was the only lap I ever sat on to this day. Unless you count me laying on Michael Junko’s lap during our duet in Oliver…which I don’t.
You see, I have so many wonderful memories of my father, it’s kind of weird that he was only around for the first 6 years of my life because sometimes it feels longer.
But other times…it feels like he was only around for the first 6 years of my life. It hurts.
Just like I have good memories, I also have bad ones.
You see, my father was a drug dealer, he owned every hot spot in Bayamon. He started selling the drugs, but ended up using them too. He even got my mom into drugs. One of my earliest memories as a child is watching my parents snorting drugs in the bathroom. They didn’t bother closing the door because I was 3 and they figured I wouldn’t remember.
I remember when I was 4 or 5, coming home with my parents and finding the place trashed. The glass door was shattered, my Atari was gone, and my parent’s mattress was on the floor. Apparently that’s where my dad kept all his money, under the mattress.
Slowly the drugs began to consume my dad. My mom, in one of the few instances where she stepped up and decided to be a mother, decided that wasn’t the type of life she wanted me to grow up in. She stopped using the drugs cold turkey and told my dad to do the same. But he wouldn’t, or couldn’t. Finally my mom told him to choose between his drugs and his family, and he chose the drugs.
My mother left him, and we moved in with her mother in Dorado.
My dad lost everything, first the house in Toa Alta, then the house in Bayamon. He moved back in with his mother and I spent alternate weekends there.
My father’s conditioned worsened. He could barely get up, much less play with me, but he still made an effort at first. We still had our Saturday night scary movie-thon and during the day he would take me on walks with him around the caserio, or projects as it’s called here. I was 6 and happy to walk with my dad hand in hand, so I didn’t realize that we were meeting up with his sellers and collecting money and drugs.
My mom began dating guys and staying out all night. And when my dad found out, he just shrugged and told me it was just a phase. That she would come back to him and the three of us would be a family again.
But then my mom met Angel and she stopped seeing everyone else. She introduced me to him and Angel introduced us to his daughters and son. He was a great guy, I really liked him. I even rode on the back of his motorcycle, just the two of us.
My dad knew he was different and he got even worse than I thought was possible. I barely saw him anymore when I spent the weekends at my grandma’s. He would crawl into bed with me in the middle of the night, and that’s how I would know that he had been home at all.
I remember my last conversation with him. He was crying, something I had never seen my dad do. He told me that he knew my mom loved Angel. And that now he knew that all hope was lost. She would never return to him. He told me that he couldn’t live without her and that he should just kill himself because he rather be dead than live without my mom.
I cried, pleaded with him to stop talking that way. He told me he had nothing left to live for. And I asked him, “What about me? I love you, you can’t leave me.” “But I can’t live without her,” he said, “Don’t come next weekend. Stay home.” I hugged him. Held tight, and begged him not to do it, not to leave me. He hugged me back and kissed me atop my head.
I knew, when my mother turned the light on in our bedroom in the middle of the night, tears running down her face, that he was dead. She sat down next to me and said, “There’s something I have to tell you.” I looked at her and said, “He’s dead, isn’t he?” My mom’s eyes bugged out, she was shocked that I knew. She nodded her head and said yes.
I didn’t cry. I just looked at her for another moment, and laid back down, turning my back on her.
We had the wake in my grandma’s living room. I spent the evening outside on a table they had set up for the kids. Me and my cousins talked and played and laughed. But eventually people left, and those that remained fell asleep. I found myself outside, alone.
I walked inside, glanced at the few people asleep on the couch and some even in chairs. I grabbed a chair for myself, because I was too little and I couldn’t reach the casket. I climbed up and there was my dad.
He looked like he was asleep, except that his lips were really white. I remember that.
And suddenly, all the anger that I had inside--because I was angry, angry at him for doing something so stupid and for leaving me; it all left when I saw him. And I cried. I stroked his cheek and I asked him why, and I told him I loved him and that he shouldn’t have left me. And then I kissed him on the cheek and said goodbye. And I got off the chair, put it back, and sat on the couch next to my mom who was sleeping, and laid my head on her arm and fell asleep.
After that everything is blurry, most of it blacked-out. I remember getting woken up in the morning, then I remember sitting on someone’s lap (either my cousin or my aunt) on our way to the cemetery and then I remember sitting on their lap again after the ceremony was over. (I guess you can strike that comment I made earlier about my dad and Michael Junko’s lap
). I don’t even remember getting out of the car.It’s been 17 years. It’s been so long, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like it just happened. Maybe because I have so many unresolved issues. Each year I mourn and though the pain in my heart is as intense as it has always been, I always mourn him in different ways.
Some years I’m angry at him because he left me when I needed him. Because he was a coward who took the easy way out.
Other years I mourn, not only his loss, but also the loss of all the things we missed out on. He never taught me to ride a bike, he never saw me graduate, never saw any of my performances, never read any of my school essays or any of my short stories. He never got to meet my first boyfriend, or threaten him with bodily harm if he touched me inappropriately. (I hear he was very over protective of me and he would have done those things).
And other years--like the first few years after his death--I blame myself. I feel as if I failed as a daughter, because I wasn’t important enough to make him stay. Long before my mother started telling me that the reason he killed himself was to get away from me, I already felt that way. Because he had fought so long to get me, his only daughter, in a family full of boys. Why then, would he throw it all away? Maybe he was disappointed with the end result. I know my mother is.
But no matter how I end up mourning him. I always miss him. I always wish he hadn’t left, that I could have had more time with him.
He wasn’t perfect, but he was my daddy and I loved him. I looked up to him. And it breaks my heart everytime I think about him, knowing he’s not around and hasn’t been around for 17 years.
I love you, daddy.
These are the only two pictures of him I have.
This was taken when he was young, before he met my mom. He used to be a boxer.
And this is how I remember him looking. That's my mom holding me, and yes that's a cigarette in her other hand.
And this (I guess) is the song I sort of dedicate to him. Everytime I hear it, I think of my life in Puerto Rico and of my dad. I can never hear this song without crying.
