Happy birthday dad

To rephrase this song:

Pain, pain fatal pain

It plays hideous tricks on the brain

Today was my fathers’ birthday. Had things gone ideally he would’ve been 62 years old and starting to enjoy retirement. Instead, he’s been dead for nearly three years and his remains are in a cemetery in a small Colombian town.

I want to say so many things; chiefly I wish I could lash out for his passing away and to let go of all the sadness and misery I’ve bottle up regarding his death. Yet for the sake of my family’s unity and progress (especially my mom’s sanity) I continue to look out for them more than me and I try to help them trudge forward.

It is this sacrifice for others which embodied my late father and that followed him to his last moments. (When he died he had been sweeping the floor and doing some light cleaning despite needing the rest after a ridiculously hard week at work. He didn’t have to do it and he was physically beat, but he wanted to neaten things up for us).

A quick anecdote: many years ago I was conversing with my dad. I asked him if he had such such a wonderful job, increased income, and was constantly surrounded by family in Colombia then why did he leave it all behind to start from square one in the U.S. His reply was simple: “I did it for you and your brothers.” Naively I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying; it seemed irrational that he would leave behind the cusp of his youth and so many things that gave him joy and satisfaction. He wanted to provide his future wife and kin with the freedom that he knew they would enjoy. His life in the U.S. was filled with obstacles especially in the first few years but he derived joy from our comfort and well-being. It was a concept that at the time seemed alien to me.

Yet in the many months since his passing I’ve grown to truly appreciate his words and the impetus behind them. His unselfishness and care for others was his legacy and it is something my brothers and I try to carry on. His memory and spirit will continue and hopefully grow in the upcoming years. He deserves it as he rests in peace from the heavens above; pleased, happy, and looking down upon us.

Dreaming of a sane Christmas

I’ll explain the new format at a later time. At this time more pressing matters need to be examined.

I do not usually have a holly, jolly attitude over the December holidays, but I tend to look forward to them as a time for peace, respite, joy, and unity.

This year will be a lot different.

Christmas was my dad’s most anticipated and favorite holiday. He loved it since it reminded him of his youth in Colombia, and it would serve as his vacation time from work. Thus, he would always build ornate nativity scenes to go along with our Christmas tree. Villages would spring to life in a carnival of lights, porcelain buildings, figurines, and trains. Despite return from work bone tired he would dedicate several hours nightly to the design, construction, and transformation of half the living room into a veritable winter wonderland. After several weeks of laboring over the holiday scene he would enjoy every detail of the completed masterpiece. So much so that he would not take it down until late January and sometimes February.

This year marks the first time that my immediate family will not be spending the holidays in Colombia since dad passed away two years back. Even though we have had a reasonably good time the past three years we’ve been there, we just cannot afford to spend another couple of thousand dollars on the trip. In addition, time is not at a premium as it had been before since one of us working full-time while the rest are trying to sort our own odds and ends.

Over the summer I begged my mom to go alone to Colombia for two weeks in the autumn. I explained to her how therapeutic it would be for her and for our family there. It would definitely be affordable though my main concern was her mental well-being. I was worried that her being at home for the holidays would be too difficult for her to cope with. On a more selfish note, I was worried that she would become depressed and I would have to put up with it somehow.

Unfortunately despite my repeated requests she declined taking the trip alone.

She put up the Christmas tree last week and over the past few nights has tried to recreate as best as possible the nativity decorations my father so dearly cherished.

Tonight she broke down, cried, and wailed for approximately thirty minutes.

I will not try to pretend and comprehend the great pain she is going through. Her husband was truly her soul mate and nothing can replace the vast void in her heart.

However, I cannot help but feel a great sense of dread at imagining the difficulties of this holiday season. There are many times that I wish I could just break down and let all my emotions run free. Yet I learned long ago that I have to keep a brave face in order for her to be fairly happy. It would be easy to be honest and I wish it could be like that, but for her sake and stability I have learned to be two-faced.

I have no clue at how I will put up with the next few months. No matter how many times I visit my shrink or try to distract myself I am certain that the upcoming weeks will be yet another challenge I have to live up to. I don’t know how I’ll do it but I’m not looking forward to putting up with more suffering than I’ve lived with over the past 26 months. Its times like these that I wish life’s answers could come on a silver platter. Reality is much different.

This is too much to bear.

I don’t think I’ll ever like the holidays again.

Un año

Yesterday was a landmark day for this blog in that it was the one-year anniversary of its inception. In the course of the past year I’ve written about many things from politics to sports to my many foibles. In that sense I’ve accomplished one of the primary goals in the creation of this blog- to write about various different topics. That was why I named this blog Huevos Pericos- because it is a dish with a milieu of ingredients that combine well enough to enjoy as a delicious meal.

Yet at the same time I realize that the blog’s production has been inadequate. In one year I’ve only written around 70-something posts. Ideally, quality should trump quantity. (That’s the modus operandi of my favorite blog- forksplit). However I need to write more and more about the ideas that run rampant in my mind and hopefully I can accomplish this in the upcoming weeks and months.

This blog was created as a conduit for my many disparate and varied thoughts; a diary, if you will. That was why I chose to type up my first post on the 6-month anniversary of my father’s death. The past few days have been quite difficult because his passing away was predominant in my mind. Very little of the feelings of nostalgia and remembrance have changed since then. More so when I look at old pictures of him like I did yesterday as mom rummaged through some old boxes of photos yesterday.

There was one snapshot in particular that caught my eye- it was of him grilling dinner during one of our summer vacations camping in southern new jersey, circa 1990. He was standing over a small hibachi grill grinning from ear to ear wearing a tattered t-shirt and shorts. His expression glowed in the brightness of the mid-afternoon sun and one could tell that he was absolutely blissful. It was a photo that captured him at his very best- energetic, overjoyed, and generous. Mind you, there were occasions when he could be very mean, ornery, and cruel. But for now I prefer to remember the positive aspects about him and try to use that as a crutch to support my still-wounded psyche when I look back at the unfinished book which was his life.

So yeah, we’re one-year-old. Happy birthday to us.