Category: Mother

Mom and Snoopy

They didn’t sell him in stores. I loved Snoopy though and my mom had skills. She bought some black and white fabric and in the evenings after supper she cut, she sewed and stitch by stitch made me a beagle of my own. It didn’t quite match the Schulz version because one ear was too long. I didn’t have the heart to tell her and I think she may have known. Thanks Mom!

Eye Contact

It had been a tiring two months and at times it seemed as if every third day or so we’d made the drive to the hospital on unassuming Beverly Boulevard in Montebello and rush up to the floor where my father laid in bed after his very last episode at home.

Every time the phone rang during those weeks a rush of sensations would shoot like a bolt of lighting down my back. Why my mother’s number appeared on the tiny grayish screen of my phone I always wondered for half a second if it had finally happened. After the first four or five calls and hurried trips the calls started to become a nuisance and took a back seat to a few other pressing matters before me.

The holidays were now soon just before us. My wife and I were expecting our first child. The economy was quickly beginning to show the signs of a radical change. Things were moving in all sorts of different directions and now my father’s possible demise was becoming just “another issue to deal with”.

Our near identical temperament had kept us away for many years. Soon after my 15th birthday my father and I had quietly come to the understanding that we were not mean to be friends. At least, not for a long while. He had many demons. The alcohol, the rabid temper, his need for women other than my mother. I felt short of his ideal for a son. I was too sensitive, meek to the world and shied away from verbal or physical confrontations.

Things did not get better as I aged. My college years expanded my range of questions and I felt his frustration when he had to admit a lack of answers. He was an intelligent man who had not been well educated. He was proud of his son’s achievements but was troubled to see him pulling away. Fights and threats were frequent. I think I felt his fists on my chin, shoulders and ribs more during those times.

Then I met someone special. Someone different than the usual young ladies they had learned about throughout my first eight quarters of college. The woman I met was spirited, rational, traveled and no-nonsense. She sparked the idea of a life outside of our university and the real life tools we’d need to begin it. My time with her was magical but as we became closer life at home deteriorated at a quicker pace.

By the time the decision was made to move in together, my father and I hardly spoke. On the day I left for home and just before he closed the door behind me I heard his sendoff. “Good look to you and your whore. You are never welcomed here again.”

I made a life with Nicole. We continued to date, we struggled together, we built careers, we almost broke apart, we figured it out, we bought our first home, we planned our wedding and eventually announced that we had created a new life. The process took years of course and in that time, while my life progressed in leaps and bounds, the relationship with my father only moved in the smallest of positive increments.

It was with this history that my father and I met on that cloudy December day. The night before, I was informed by the nursing staff, he had lost the ability to speak and his weakness prevented movement. The man was trapped within his own body. My sisters and mother waited in the hall. They were exhausted, eyes red, shoulders slumped, clothes rumpled. They were also at odds with one another. Two thought he should continue fighting while one ambivalently argued that he needed to go and end the suffering.

I was briefed with options as his next of kin and the only person legally capable of deciding.

His hospital room was surprisingly well lit. He was laying on the bed nearly flat, a white thin blanket shrouded his body and his legs were apart some. It was in this moment that I came to understand how much his body had wasted away. The hulk of a man I had known as a child had imploded to skin and bones. The heavy hands with thick sausage-like fingers that had struck or held me as a baby were thin, veiny and lacked human warmth.

Then I came upon his face. His hearty cheeks were gone. Lips dry, cracked and had lost the full redness I remember my mother boasting about when I was younger. Interestingly, his hair was full and thick. It had grown fast since I had seen him last and it’s waviness caught me by surprise. I had an urge to touch it and I did. Stroking his mane back and remembering when he’d come home late and run his warm fingers through my hair as he muttered “buenas noches Hugo.”

It was in mid-stroke that his eyes opened and we made eye contact. It took half-a-second for him to focus and recognize me. I believe he did because I felt his gaze “leap” when I think he finally saw me. It seemed a long time passed before I spoke to him. It wasn’t a poignant speech and I don’t care to remember what was actually said. I do remember telling him that I wish I had made him proud. That the grandchild to come would be a boy. That I had made a decision and that I wished him the best. After that, he blinked twice and I saw his chest take in as much air as he could muster and then deflate quickly.

I stepped out of the room, signed awaiting paperwork and took a short walk.

When I returned, his body was cold. My father was gone.

Scissors (Part 1)

The television set flicked on and groggily searched for a signal on that overcast Easter afternoon in the mid-1980s. The day was an emerging tradition in our family and as the box honed in on the signal my sister and I grew restless and sought escape from the hammed up movie due to start.

I don’t know where my objections first sprung from. I knew it was a mix of how the main protagonist’s (who was a Spaniard) accent pronounced Ss and made every sentence seem oily and thus baked in unwarranted sophistication and insincerity. Or maybe it was that even at that age I felt that the film maker meant to manipulate the audience and it irked me that my parents would share tears on queue.

Perhaps it was my frustration for how in previous years I had watched with watery eyes a gaunt and bloodied actor struggle through the cobble-stoned streets while the angry throng hissed hatred in his direction. How could I (now “wiser”) been so easily duped to emotion? Now though, as I watched with my sister I read through the melodrama with all-knowing skepticism and whispered in her ear that is was time escape to our family’s back yard.

My father, not seeking an argument that day, relieved us both to our afternoon play and in a flash she and I raced out the door and to our play area so as to enjoy the last few minutes of daylight amidst the grass, darkening skies and overgrown vegetation at the northernmost fence.

—

The tool laid harmlessly by my father’s work shed. It was no more than a half foot long with two tan handles that came together by a thick screw like knob. From that off-center spot two gleaming leaf like blades shot out and I remember watching the light race across them as I shifted their angle to the sun during my inspection. They seemed harmless and I imagined how I may have shrunk so tiny that I was holding a regular pair of scissor which I should use to help my sister and I escape the wild jungle our back yard had become.

My sister trounced through the garden in her favorite and over-worn white top and khaki pants that were slowly thinning at the knees. She reached me with a smile and intently heard my description of the journey we would take together as Amazon adventurers who’d have to make their way through the thick of brush, vines and wicked man-eating plants. The journey would be perilous but I assured her that with her assistance we’d make it back to civilization in one piece and branded heroes.

Though she is three years younger than I, her imagination was always more fierce and in a moment she had envisioned the treacherous adventure at our feet and beckoned us to begin. With that tug at my arm I picked up the scissors and we made our way to the bougainvillea draped fence that served as the main wall of an undiscovered ancient temple. As we shimmied our way across, my sister described the endless chasm at our feet and warmed me that one false move could plunge us into the abyss. Care and a slow pace were key she said and I followed behind her, nipping at the strings of the plant above us that acted like cobras and pythons  that would easily devour us.

With a start, the adventurer ahead turned around and put her finger to her lips. We had reached the entrance to the temple but it was covered with a hundred-year’s worth of growth. To make our way inside would take patience as the gates were booby-trapped and one wrong cut would send a deadly cascade of rocks on top of us, end our adventure and leave our skeletons ready to be discovered by other foolish archaeologist in later expeditions.

With that, she moved me closer and asked me to brandish the tool. She would hold a string of bougainvillea and I would cut it hoping not to unleash the dread above us. We both pretended to sweat and pant like they do in the movies. This was serious business, discovery and treasure were in our grasp, but we had to cut just right.

My sister grabbed the plant and angled it towards me. She showed me where to cut and together we nodded as the countdown began. “Uno” we said and I saw a smile race across her face, “dos” and her sight left mine as she focused on the marked spot, “tres”……..

I poured the full power of my tiny muscles to the handles of the scissors. The thickness of my target was no more than a few millimeters thick but I had to be sure the cut was successful. Our life depended on it after all. It was this force that shifted my approach and sent the blades in a difference direction than intended.

My ears registered a slight whistle as the blades cut through the air and began convening on a point. What I remember next is the crimson jet of liquid that came at me and splashed on my brown belt. Then, in confusion I let go of the scissors and watch them slowly make their way to the ground and land awkwardly on the concrete that as they settled still began to show a scattered galaxy of red dots. Next came my sister’s surprisingly quiet shriek and my gaze moved to her grimacing face and then to her hands which she had brought together and were slowly being glazed by the gushing blood. My stomach turned and a dizzying moment came over me that resolved itself quickly as (from the corner of my eye) I saw my mother look out the window to check on us.

She new without us saying one word and in a moment both her and my father rushed frantically towards us…..

Diabetes

My father was a brawny simple man who developed diabetes in his forties.
For many years my mother excused his fits of rage on the disease.
Growing up we walked on egg-shells around him so as not to trigger the anger.
When it couldn’t be helped he always went for his belt drawer. He had them in all shapes and sizes. Some were made from crocodile hides, others were thick hunks of black and brown leather.
I still remember the fear and dread when he commanded us to stay put and await his return. My back, arms, chest, legs and face still recoil when I remember the flash of heat they sensed when the belt whipped the skin.
Once the rage subsided he paced away gruffly. Muttering, cursing, and perhaps looking for other opportunities to start up again.
My on-looking mother would then remind us of his diabetes.