Category Archives: Uncategorized

Remembering Dad On His 90th Birthday

Dad was the ultimate baseball fan, especially of the Texas Rangers. I learned after his death that he played on a baseball team in San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

Dad was the ultimate baseball fan, especially of the Texas Rangers. I learned after his death in 2011 that he played on a baseball team in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. Date of photo is unknown.

 

It’s hard to believe my dad would have turned 90 today. He died at the age of 87 in 2011. Recently, while throwing out old stuff, I found a letter he wrote to me in Spanish when I was a student at UT-Austin.

Stella,
Things you have to try to remember. Try to read the newspaper in Spanish so that you can practice writing in Spanish. Also, don’t forget to talk to Mrs. Ramos regarding your scholarship. Please tell her that you will tell everyone how much she has helped you, in other words, that you are very grateful and that you will not let her down. Another thing, I don’t want you to feel alone at college. You know that we are with you at every moment.
Tu Papa,
Juan Chavez

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A trip to the past with Mom

Mom enjoying her plate of lengua, nopalitos and arroz.

Who knew that a trip to the grocery store would unlock memories tucked away deep in your subconscious? That walking the aisles of verduras and pan dulce or noticing the familiar sight of a woman cutting up cactus would feel like a step back in time.

That instead of worrying about the 20 other things you need to do, you find you are somewhere else – in Mexico as a young girl on summer vacation accompanying a tía to el mercado.

The feeling surprises you because it’s not what you expected from a seemingly ordinary trip to buy groceries.

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First Father’s Day without Dad

Dad sporting his new Dallas Mavericks t-shirt a year ago on Father’s Day.

“We have these great Father’s Day gifts,” said the young woman at the grocery store as I walked down an aisle looking for something. I faked a smile, said thank you and quickly turned around.

It’s hard to avoid the mass marketing of this day. Nearly every day for the past month or so, I’ve received at least one email from retail stores or online sites promising to have the perfect gift for Dad. On the radio, on TV, in newspapers and magazines, the ads and headlines scream Father’s Day.

“Are you doing anything fun for Father’s Day?” the young cashier at Tom Thumb asked my husband on Saturday. No, he answered.

The question raises another one. What do you do on this day when your dad is gone? Both of us lost our fathers within two months of each other last summer. So today is especially difficult. We’ve been asking ourselves how we should spend it.

It’s not until you lose a parent that you realize how painful this day can feel. What makes it especially tough is that the previous Father’s Day was the last time I saw my dad alive.

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Thanksgiving without Dad

The seat at the end of the long wooden dining table near my kitchen is a frequent reminder of many family Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. It was where Dad always sat. It was his place because it was easier to wheel him there.

Last year, however, Dad wasn’t able to join us during the holidays. A few months before, our family made the difficult decision to move him to a nursing home.

Thanksgiving Day 2010 at Dad's nursing home.

Not seeing him in his usual spot at Thanksgiving last year felt strange and made me sad, but thankfully we’d seen him earlier that day.

My mom, husband and I joined him in the nursing home dining room as he ate his lunch. He had a healthy appetite and didn’t need much help using utensils. We joked with him and took photos to let him know he was still very much a part of the festivities.

This holiday season Dad’s absence is more profound. There was no visit to the nursing home. No checking in on him, no joking around, no “we’ll see you later.”

Dad died five months ago this week – in his sleep on a Thursday morning at the nursing home. When I woke that morning, I noticed numerous missed calls from my brother and an urgent message to call him. The moment I had dreaded for so long had arrived.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him. Yet I’ve struggled with what to say about his death.

Reminders of Dad are everywhere – on torn pieces of paper, in notebooks, in files on my laptop and on the back of receipts in my purse. There are notes to refill his prescriptions, sketches of my conversations with him, scenes from the nursing home, ideas for future blog posts and reminders to talk to the nursing home staff about the pressing issue of the day.

I catch myself telling friends or relatives something about my parents in the present tense and have to correct myself.

For weeks after Dad died, I would glance at the blue bag in the trunk of my car. Inside was the Mavericks Championship T-shirt I bought him that he wore on Father’s Day – the last time I saw him alive. The shirt was a little too tight on him, so my mom asked me to exchange it for a larger size. After he died, I couldn’t bring myself to take it out of the car. When I finally did, it brought a flurry of memories from that day, as well as tears.

For a while, I kept running into an elderly man at work, on the elevator and in the cafeteria. He walks slowly and doesn’t say much. He looks nothing like my dad, but something about him stuck with me. Maybe it’s a reminder of the fragility of life, the desire for independence.

Two months and three days after my dad’s death, my father-in-law died. I witnessed my husband experiencing the same emotions I went through. Sitting in a funeral home again listening to my husband and his family make arrangements brought back the still raw emotions that I hadn’t yet been able to process. But having each other there helped both of us.

Death has been on our minds a lot since then. At some inevitable point, we all will be the man at work or the nursing home patient waiting for a loved one to stop by. If we’re lucky.

Sometimes we are too obsessed with our own lives to notice the elderly. Only when you grow older do you cultivate a respect for longevity in this world, especially when confronted with parents who are nearing the end of their lives.

Thank you, Dad, for that lesson.