I was driving to the golf range when I got the call. It was from my mom. Her voice was shaky as she said my name in a question kind of way. I knew right away what she was going to say. My dad had passed. I turned the car around and headed home. I was numb.
My dad was born in Cuba. My grandparents fled Cuba in a tiny boat packed with people headed for America. Things were so bad that they felt it was worth the risk to flee. If you were caught fleeing, the punishment was death. It was a powerful deterrent by the government to keep people from leaving. My father, an infant at the time, was almost thrown overboard from screaming when his mother shoved a breast into his mouth and shut him up. My father wanted to be an artist, he wanted to be a musician and a writer. He became an insurance agent. My father worked, married, bought a little house, fathered two children, smoked, worked, saved for a bigger house, bought a bigger car, learned to sail, quit smoking, worked until he retired from the insurance company. He was dedicated to his family and provided us with everything. Two years after my brother and I moved out, my parents divorced. My father dated many women. He would vacation in Europe, Asia and South America with his ‘girlfriend’ of the month. My parents never vacationed alone when we were kids. It was always a family trip to the mountains, skiing or some type of site seeing trip. My mother had devoted her life to taking care of her kids, her husband and house. My mother took the split very hard. My mother would be crushed when she'd catch wind that my father was on one of his many vacations with his new arm candy. After a few years of dating, my father married a woman 20 years younger than him. After a few years of marriage he started to forget things, often got confused, and his speech would sometimes be slurred. When his wife started to notice his decline in health, she left. Just got her things and left him without saying a word. I’ve never felt such hate towards anyone like I did for her. He tried hiding his condition from us for as long as he could. He didn’t want to be a burden to us. It was his nature not to show weakness or helplessness. He had been a person who always had control in his life. He had always been the caregiver, not the one needing care. Then, one day he just showed up at my mother’s door. Twelve years after they divorced, they remarried. They were in each other presence every day, not ever being away from each other for more than minutes at a time. Mom cared for him up to the end. He took his last breath cradled in my mother’s arms.
I used to fall asleep on my dads stomach as we lay in the living room floor watching cartoons. Anything that broke of mine, he would fix. He was and will always be my hero. I miss my dad.
