Amor, the longer Version

I rarely write about personal matters for reasons that are not clear to me. As a journalist, I was mainly concerned with writing about issues that were going on around me in the most objective way I knew how. Writing about current affairs also gave me the luxury of being detached from my being.

My stories tended to be short, which the people who laid out the newspaper pages loved. This story is not going to be one of those.

For me, writing about personal things is difficult. Perhaps it is the millions of thoughts that run through my mind; contradictory thoughts about what is right or wrong, good or bad. Maybe it’s the fear of opening up too much and letting people see what’s happening on the inside. I’m sure it’s a combination of many things, but probably more of the latter.

Nevertheless, I was moved to write because of a dream that woke me up at about three in the morning. Like most of my dreams, I don’t remember exactly what it was about, but when I woke up, I knew that my deceased Mother, Father, and brother Carlos were in the dream. During that very drowsy time, while you go from being asleep to being alert and you think the dream is real, I was hoping they might be next to me so that I could say, “I love you,” one more time, even if it was just for a second or two.

Of course, that didn’t happen, and I couldn’t get back to sleep.

While I was melancholy that they were not with me, I had the opportunity to think about their lives, this time differently than I had before.

A good friend, a psychologist, once told me that you couldn’t define a person’s life on this earth until it was over because, like everything else, their life is constantly changing. So, I was thinking about my Mother, Helen, my Father, Horacio, and my brother Carlos in a way that I think I could only do now and at my age.

I realize now that, although I always thought of them as just my parents and a brother, they were, in fact, grandchildren, parents, sons, daughters, friends, and so much more. While they were alive, my view of them was much more limited.

It seems to me that their generation placed the value on not expressing certain feelings so that friends and family would not be adversely affected by them, even if they were inevitable things such as illness and death. Looking back, I realize that even if you can’t see the hurt, as an old Spanish proverb says, “The procession is moving inside.”

Knowing What Lay Ahead

Unfortunately, my brother Carlos had health problems all his life and only lived to be 50. He had to face difficult things at an early age because he knew his chances of living a long life were slim. Yet he found a way to laugh, to find the funny side of things even if it was somewhat politically incorrect and irreverent as he practiced being brave and finding the courage to deal with his life’s challenges. He wanted to make sure his children would be fine when he wasn’t with us anymore.

Carlos was brilliant, perhaps the smartest of the six children. We lost him in 2002 after his many battles with heart disease.

I thought he might pull the rabbit out of the hat one more time like he had done so many times before and live longer. I also thought I was ready if he didn’t. I was wrong on both counts.

My father foresaw his death this time, and it upset me that he had lost hope. There I was, angry at a man about to lose his son because I couldn’t see the pain inside of him and didn’t see the reality that he did. My mother suffered quietly, which was her way. That last night at the hospital, they both knew their son was not going to be with us but a few hours more, and they knew what they had to do. What upset me was listening to my father call the funeral home so they would be ready when my brother died. Neither of my parents wanted to leave him in that hospital any longer than need be.

I couldn’t see that. I could not look past my feelings to see their world falling apart.

320

Ever since I was a little boy, whenever we would drive home with my father, there was a corner in Miami Shores where, with a slight turn of your head toward the right, you could see a house in which my grandparents lived and where my grandfather died – his father. My father never turned his head in that direction. He simply never looked toward the right more than he had to ensure he could cross the intersection safely. I thought it was so strange as I imagined there must have been some happy memories that would emanate from those cement blocks, windows, and roof at 320 Grand Concourse. But he just wouldn’t do it.

I knew enough not to ask.

Today I have a somewhat similar story, and it is my story. On the few occasions when I happen to pass by the area where I grew up, where I spent more than 50 years of my life, I also don’t drive by the house where I lived and where my parents died. When I bypass that street, I think of the many times I was so critical of my father for doing the same thing.

I am glad now that I never asked.

Not all is bad, though. I remember the happy times in our white Georgian-style two-story home with the thirty-foot pine tree that my mother bought in a pot at K-Mart when I was a child; fortunately, there are many. I’ve learned that those memories need to be nurtured so they don’t disappear. I’ve also learned that they give strength and joy if you look at them in the right way, even though many years have passed. I also understand a little bit better why it was so hard for my father to glance to the right at that stop sign. I have that mental stop sign in my own head now.

My mother lost her mother at a very early age in Nicaragua in the 1940s. Her father died here in Miami in February 1966, a relatively young man who had had a fascinating life. On the anniversary of his death, she always kept herself busy in one way or another, frequently sewing. On a few occasions, I saw her looking at the clock and saying something like, “At this time, he was agonizing,” and then not saying anything else. I didn’t know what the word “agonizing” meant, but I didn’t ask again. She was a woman of deep faith, so I know now she was praying, but she did so alone in her thoughts and with little fanfare.

As I think of those days, I realize that while I was looking at my Mother, Helen, at that moment, she was the daughter of Stuart. Through my heart’s eye, I understand better. She missed her “Daddy” and her Mother.

My mother could be introverted at times. This was a challenge for a newspaper publisher’s wife. The job had its public profile, and at times she was timid. But when she opened up, she was a delight. She was always very elegant and hilarious. She could make a whole room laugh with her wit. Sometimes this would drive my Father bonkers because she could be very irreverent.

There was a time that she gave me perhaps the surprise of my life because it was so out of character, or so I thought.

The Hose Incident

One day, coming home from school on my bicycle, my mother hid behind the bushes, ran out at the last minute, and gave me a thorough drenching with the garden hose. The next day I had a tough time convincing the teachers at school that all of my books and assignments were wet because my mom nailed me with the hose. To this day, I don’t think any of them believed me. “Not Mrs. Aguirre; she wouldn’t do that,” they would say. Well, she did.

One Last Anecdote

When my wife María and I had just married, we took a trip to Guatemala to a convention of the Inter-American Press Association, an organization that both my father and I love(d) and chaired. There lived someone very close, like a brother to my father, who grew up with him in Leon, Nicaragua, and we both loved him very much. I wanted María to meet him. He was a Jesuit priest named Orlando Sacasa. Unfortunately, Father Sacasa died a few months before we made our trip.

The three of us went to the cemetery, which, during those days, was a dangerous thing to do because of the lack of security. People were frequently mugged at the cemeteries in those days. We went anyway and eventually found Father Sacasa’s gravesite. We said a few prayers, and afterward, I described Father Sacasa to María. He bought me my first educational electronics kit at Radio Shack when I was a little boy, so I would start learning about electronics, solar batteries, and such things. I told her of his infectious laughter during his visits to Miami when he watched Rowan and Martin’s TV show “Laugh-In”. Then my father started to speak and broke down-some thing he rarely did-Teary-eyed; he said, “I don’t ever remember a time in my life without Orlando being a part of it.” This was Horacio, the forever childhood friend.

In short, my parents and brother were many things, and each had experiences that affected them as they do anyone else that became ingrained in their behavior. They had their dreams, successes, and disappointments. In other words, they were like everyone else. I forget that sometimes. I understand a little better now; they were more than just Mother, Father, and brother. They also missed their parents or grandparents. They worried about their children. But they had to move forward as they led their respective families best they could so that we could all grow up happy and healthy.

This time in my life is a special one. It is not without its challenges, but with the joy of a lovely wife, wonderful children, and grandchildren who are a ray of light for all, I am blessed. I still have to remind myself of that, and I need to be constantly asking God for, as a story in the Bible says, “a listening heart.” I believe that that is where you find greater happiness in all the stages of your life.

I know my parents and brother had to forgive me for things I did or said, and they did because what binds us all together is love. 

As I thought of writing this post, I remember a sister-in-law, a brother-in-law, and a cousin in Washington DC, all lovely people who left too soon, or rather that’s the way I feel. Like my parents and brother, all showed us great love during their lifetimes. That love is what helps get me out of my shell and, on a good day, have the compassion to look harder to understand other people’s challenges and the great gift of their time with us. That is where the real work begins.