I remember

My family makes fun of me because I struggle to remember key scenes and phrases from movies or lyrics from songs that they easily recall.  It's a running joke where they will go into 20-30 minutes of lines, with each saying the next line, as I watch them re-enact the scenes and laugh out loud.  

Every now and then though, I shock them when I happen to say something that they clearly know.   I don't know why that is the case but I just don't remember things like this, like I used to.  If I ever did.  

I do remember when and where things happen, what I felt during those momentous times or things that really hit my gut.

One scene etched in my mind is from The Lion King where Simba is reminded by Rafiki about his father and that his father's wisdom, character and strength is ingrained in him.  It is in his DNA and is his Legacy.

Sometimes, just like in The Lion King, what is needed is "un cocotazo" or a knock upside the head to make sure that you get reminded of what is important.  The importance of the truth, your values, your character, your heritage, your family - past, present and future.  The best part was when Rafiki says "You see he lives in you".  At this point, Mufasa comes back through a spirit and says "Simba, you have forgotten me.  You have forgotten yourself and therefore you have forgotten me."  

My parents instilled that in me.  We all have a sense of revolt towards our parents and want to set our own course, create our own path and be nothing like our parents.  It took time for me to realize and acknowledge, just like Simba, that I am like my parents.  The Good, the Bad, the indifferent.    My dad's hot headedness, his tell it like it is approach, his extremely high and sometimes unreachable expectations, but also his worth ethic, love for family, love for our Puerto Rican heritage.  My mom's emotions (yes, men do cry), her empathy, her love of family, her "skills" with children as my son Nick attests to.  Add to this my own character traits: my desire to do the right thing, my moral compass, my social personality to befriend everybody.

My dad had half a dozen Puerto Rican stickers and flags in his car, if not more.  In my car, I have a single Puerto Rican flag attached to the front window to always remind me of where my parents came from, where I come from "pre birth".  Where my roots are and who I am.  From people that are proud yet humble.  Strong but respectful and caring.  Full of life, passion, hope and most of all resilient to the incredible challenges of living on an island that at times feels isolated from the mainland even though it has been part of the U.S. since 1898.

Never was Puerto Rico reminded more about its isolation, 2nd class citizenship and association with the United States than when Hurricane Maria nearly destroyed the island in September 2017.  Unable to have direct contact with family over there for weeks,  which seemed like months.  Having to turn to people in other states who had long range CB radios who could connect with people, isolated in an island without water, electricity, communication, essential hospital and healthcare services, just to name a few of the things they lost.  

The following year, I went to Puerto Rico, to visit my family and pay my respects to one of my aunts that had passed away.  My own father, her brother, had unexpectedly pre-deceased her by 6 months.  While there, another one of my 70 year old aunts told me about how difficult it was for them after the hurricane.  She would wake up at 5 in the morning to start digging out the sludge from the basement because of the mud slides while praying to God to give her strength to continue doing this and taking care of her husband who was in a wheelchair and needed help full time.

Things were so bad that months later, FEMA and a team of rescue personnel from different countries, this one from Africa of all places, showed up to ask my aunt where they were getting water.  My aunt brought them to the back of the house to show them the tank full of water. She told them that she was filling it up with the water that would come from this pipe/hole (circled in the picture below) in the wall that God had provided.  It is what they were drinking from, since the hurricane had shut down everything.

The response from the Federal Government under the helm of the former President was disastrous, pitiful if not downright shameful.  It lacked empathy, care and respect for fellow Americans.   

I previously wrote about it in a prior blog.  Even the Daily News made a note to plea for help on behalf of the American citizens in Puerto Rico.

It has been 7 years since Maria.  For Puerto Ricans on the island, it is still hit and miss to lose power on a regular day because of the slightest rainfall or even no rain at all. Just regularly occurring power outages that also prevents the water from being pumped up to the remote part of the island where my family lives.  

Yes they are resilient and most have built additional reserve tanks that they depend on when "the water goes" or as they say "se fue el agua".  Yes, while some of them have solar panels and battery backup that were added to their homes as part of the recovery process, not every home has it.  In October of this year, for another funeral, I was able to go there and experience the lack of power and water myself, but luckily I stayed at one of the homes with the additional reserves and backup power.  Half of the house had power and half of it did not since the power system was not big enough to supply power for the whole house.

Less than 2 weeks ago, during an event in Madison Square Garden, Puerto Ricans were reminded of how they are viewed by the "conservative" party with a joke about a floating island of garbage called Puerto Rico.  

The response from the nearly 5.2M Puerto Ricans that live in the U.S., was instant, resounding and continues to this day, several weeks later.  Tonight, the night before the 2024 election, it is being viewed as an inflection or turning point in this election.

I Remember.  I remember what I felt, not being able to know if my friends and family in Puerto Rico were alive.  I remember the long hours of collecting donations and the generous response from the churches, people in the community and businesses to send help to Puerto Rico to make up for the weak response of the Federal Government.  I remember the despair of the voices over the phone, the tears streaming down my face when I spoke with my family on the island after weeks of not knowing.  I remember my community of Puerto Ricans and the constant saying that Puerto Rico Se Levanta, translated as Puerto Rico will Rise Again.

Marc Anthony, in a recent ad captured this emotion.  As he said the words, I too remembered what I felt.

This year, I voted for whom I believe will sincerely make a difference in this country and hopefully for Puerto Rico.  For whom I believe actually cares about others and is not, self absorbed, in it for himself or running away from what is well deserved.  I voted for whom I truly believe values the beauty of all of the citizens of this country, be they white, black, hispanic, asian, straight or not.  For the quilt that is America the Beautiful.

For I believe in Compassion, Integrity, Empathy, Love and not hate.   I voted for the future and not the past because I remember my parents, my family, my people.  I voted because I Remember.

La Casita

I have written previously about how important it was for Mom to have her own house.   From as far back as I could remember, even before my teenage years, mom would sit by me on my bed and say, "Rafy, cuando tu crezca, tu me compra una casita?"  (Ralphy - when you grow older, would you buy me a house?)  I don't recall Mom ever ask for anything else.  I am sure there were lots of other things she wished for or wanted but she never let me know.

Mom was very simple.  She basically had two things on her bucket list.  Her home and her family.  She was happy with life because she had both.  

Mom grew up very poor, as my Dad told us, on dirt floors and surely had days where she would go to bed hungry.  She lived down the hill from Dad.  When I say down the hill, you could say at the bottom of the mountainside where Dad lived.  

Years ago, in the early '80s I had a chance to go to Jayuya with Luisa and I was able to see where it was that Mom lived when she was a child.  There was no real way to get to mom's house, unless it was climbing down the side of the mountain, from the main road where dad lived.  It easily took about 10 minutes on a steep incline.

When I went there, the house that mom lived in was gone.  The only thing standing was the remnants of a structure, such as 3-4 blocks, a bit of cement for the kitchen area, but everything else was gone.

There was this big tree, around the base of the property, that had a special seed that I had never seen before.  

I grabbed a bag full of those seeds, called Mato Rojo or by the official name: Canavalia nitida and to this day, still have the bag.  In the attached spanish link, it says that this is one of the most utilized items in the making of jewelry by artisans in Puerto Rico.

My cousins tell me that if you rub the seed against the concrete, they spark, generate a flame and heat.  They said that this is something they did with it when they were younger. 

Whenever I look at those seeds, I am reminded of the struggles that my mom and her family had and how far along she came, and us after that.  I love the symbolism of it.   From the base at the bottom of this steep hill, there is a tree that produces the hardest and strongest seeds.  I saw that strength in my mom.

When they retired and moved down to South Carolina Mom and Dad bought the first and only home they would ever own.  Prior to moving to SC, mom working at K-Mart, would buy things for her casita.  The one that she was going to get, when she retired.

They spent several amazing years in "la casita".  Every birthday & holiday would be celebrated at Mom's house.  Yes, it was Dad's as well, but to Mom, it was her dream house.  The one she always desired and deserved.

During her battle with her late stages of Alzheimer's, she would cry and say she wanted to go home.  Not realizing of course that she was home.

Dad passed away first and Mom followed him a little over a year later.  The house was transferred to my 3 sisters and I.

Mom wanted a large family.  Raised as the only female by her father and her 3 brothers, losing her mom at the age of 6, she wanted nothing but a big family.  She adored her children, grandchildren and even got to meet most of her great grandchildren.  Though by this time, she was so far on the losing side of her Alzheimer's battle that she could not tell the difference between her own descendent, a complete stranger's child or even the plastic doll she would cuddle in her arms.

Dad would have wanted us to sell the house to anybody at whatever price we could get for it.  Mom though, would have clearly wanted for her Casita to stay "within the family" if possible.  For a family member to start building a future of memories based on the foundation she had laid, or better yet, the seeds that she had planted.  

Today, just 2 weeks shy of when Mom and Dad bought their Casita back on Valentine's Day in 2006, exactly 16 years ago, we sold La Casita to Kayla.  One of Mom's grandchildren.   

We got to close another chapter in this book about Mom and Dad.  The last chapter of our responsibility to Mom and Dad to take care of their possessions.  It took longer than all of us would have imagined and we could have chosen the easy path but sometimes the more difficult path is the right thing to do.  

To Kayla - Congratulations on purchasing your first home.  It is even more memorable as you are the 2nd owner on a home that was originally owned by your grandparents.  They left Puerto Rico before anyone of us was born, with the hopes of making a better future for all of us.   You and that house are both a direct result of that hope.    

Remembering The Most Important Thing in Life.

After living what feels like perpetual Ground Hog Day due to the pandemic, it was time for a vacation.  A week before the pandemic started becoming an issue in the US on March 2020, and all travel from Europe was locked down, Luisa and I were actually headed to Cancun with some dear friends.  

It was going to be the first vacation that Luisa and I had taken in about 10 years.  Over the years, we had taken days off here and there, such as Luisa accompanying me on business trips, or going to the beach for 3-4 days and of course there would be our annual trip to Florida to kiss off the old year and welcome the new year but none of these are what I would truly call a vacation.  

Right before the Cancun trip, I had just gotten back from Toronto on business and was really concerned that we would not be allowed back into the US so we decided not to go.  Prior to the lockdown though our primary focus was on taking care of my mom and dad especially in the latter years.  Luisa also flew down multiple times, most of the time alone, to spend the last precious moments with her brother and father before they passed.

After having lived through 18 months of painful loses and then roughly 18 months of a pandemic, we were ready to start a new chapter.  To be able to live again.

In early 2021, I started planning for a trip to Puerto Rico.  My initial goals were to do Ancestry Research, visit family and get to know Puerto Rico like I have not experienced it before.  My Ancestry research portion was going to be the first time I was armed with knowledge of the island like I had never had prior to any previous trip there.  When my parents started to have their health issues in 2010/2011, I started to research my family tree and got really into it.  I studied and learned a lot about our family history, took DNA tests and convinced many relatives to do the same.  Joined many groups on Facebook and got to learn a lot about the various parts of Puerto Rico that I was not really aware of.  

So the trip to Puerto Rico was to help discover what I did not know, continue to research my tree and ancestors and start a new chapter in this thing we call life.  A "re-discovery" trip of sorts.

As the trip got closer, I started to make arrangements.  Planning to visit cemeteries throughout the island,  spend time in the Ancestry research centers, and of course with the family eating wonderful meals that would remind us of my parents cooking. 

I was actually intending to surprise my family there by only telling a few select cousins so that I can plan specific things we were going to do, but you can imagine how that goes.  Keeping a secret over there is like, well there is no such thing.  I can imagine that they would each tell each other "it is a secret so don't say anything", as they went person by person telling each other "the secret".  When I was growing up and I did something I was not supposed to do, I was surprised as heck to learn when I got home that my mom already knew about it.  When I would ask her how she knew, her response was "Un pichoncito me lo dijo."  Well, in Puerto Rico they must be inundated with pichoncitos because the planning for this trip proved that there are no secrets with a family as large as mine.  Luisa actually commented "Note to self.  Puerto Rican's can't keep a secret."  

Early on, one of the highlights I planned was to go zip lining on the Monster at Toro Verde.  As I have gotten older, I have actually become more fearless.  Life is of course, for living.  But to insure that I did not chicken out and actually went through with it, I invited (OK, for those that know me, I intensely pressured) cousins from NJ, Boston and several on the Island to go with me.  Even my sister Evelyn joined us on that trip.  It was a condition for her going with us to PR, that she had to do everything we did, including the Monster.  For those that don't know what the Monster is, check out Jimmy Fallon and his journey.  In the end, we had a total of 9 of us take the leap.

It is something else to experience and all I could think about as I was hovering around 1200 feet in the sky above the trees, was how I had ancestors that had crossed those paths below and had most likely looked up in the sky.  Now here I was in the sky looking down at the footprints they left behind.   Thanks to my cousin Manuel and son Dan for the proof we went through with it here and here.

We then headed to Jayuya where my tribe lives.  To say I have family there is an understatement.  There can never be enough time there to truly appreciate the beauty of the mountains of Puerto Rico, the amazing, humble people and of course the incredible food that they prepared.  From a Pig Roast to a Sancocho to home made bread to bacalitos, to Arroz con gandules with a side of conejo.  I had my fill and gained 10 lbs over the 2 weeks there and I am sure the bulk was during that time.  It actually started before the Orocovis trip with gandiga, empanadas, alcapurias, garbanzo with chorizo, arroz and tembleque.  And that was only one dinner thanks to chef Aby!

There was so much family, including some cousins I had never met given that I had not been there in such a while, that we had to have 3 different "events" to be able to see everyone.  Luisa said to me that she had not seen me laugh this hard in years.  I agree.

We were there for 2 whole weeks and it would take a lot to describe everything we did as we traveled throughout Dorado, San Juan, Jayuya, Utuado, Isabela, Rincon, Cabo Rojo, and Cayey.  With 4 AirBnBs, a hotel stay and of course several days at my uncle's house in the mountains, it was an incredibly memorable trip. One that I will never forget and only makes me want to go back as soon as possible.  I felt my parent's presence there.  We all did.

Once, when our boys were younger we took them to Puerto Rico.  They ran around throwing coffee beans at each other.  Coffee was something that my family grew in those mountains of Jayuya.   Coffee that my uncles would pick, and my aunts would actually roast in the largest cast iron pot over a wood fire.  My uncle once yelled at them and said, "Hey, stop throwing those beans.  That's money!".

This time, during my visit one of my cousins told me that he grows coffee.  That my uncles and cousins actually pick the coffee and my family sells it to Hacienda San Pedro who produces it and commercializes it.

On the last day of our trip, on our way to the airport, I actually went by the Hacienda San Pedro and picked up some of that coffee.  

Today, on Thanksgiving, roughly 25 days from my healing trip, I thank God as I started my day drinking some of the coffee grown and picked by my family.  I am thankful for all of my family, here and in Puerto Rico and for being reminded what truly is the most important thing in my life.  My family.

An incredible family that helped heal the wounds of isolation and pain that Luisa, Evelyn and I had, which had not fully healed until now.  A cathartic trip indeed.

Note: While I did get to visit some incredible places, to fulfill my ancestral search, I never did get to the research centers, walk the cemeteries or meet up with the dozens of DNA cousins I originally intended to visit.  I guess I have to go back soon to finish my trip.  Luisa - pack your bags.

A special shoutout to Manuel and Shirley, Grenda and Benny, and Dan and Jill for joining Luisa and I on this trip.  For Mael, Melvin, Glenda, and Junior for helping me with the plans and to all of the others that helped make this trip better than I could have ever imagined.

Remembering "Rafa"

Exactly one year ago today, I received a call from my sister that something was wrong with dad. She was crying on the phone, telling me she was on her way to the house. That she had received a call from her son Tony, who had busted the back door to find my father, not breathing, sitting in the recliner, toothpick in one hand, remote control in the other, with the TV on full blast.

I’ve been thinking about this day, in light of all of the loss of family this year, how would I feel? What would I say? Would I still remember what happened that dreadful day? Would I still feel the incredible pain of guilt of not having closure. From not saying goodbye to him when I had the chance and seeing his smile one last time. 

The regrets are long gone and the tears have slowed down. But the desire to hear his voice, his laughter, smell the cooking as I walked into his house, and basically, just get back the norm that once was, is still there.

As he lay on the ground I whispered to him that I was sorry I let him down but I promised him that we would take care of mom and do as he expected. It’s been a year and we have kept that promise.  There are times that Mom takes a turn for the worse, but she bounces back with the extra TLC we give her and God saying, "not yet".  We have lost a lot of people but Mom continues to show strength despite her delicate condition and this gut wrenching disease.

There are so many things to say, without knowing where to begin.  Dad was a simple but complex person.  You knew right away what his values were.  Family, Faith, Strong work ethics, Responsibility, Food, Heritage, Baseball - especially his Amazing Mets, his Garden, playing dominoes and his special type of music.

Dad would have been proud of us. Family was everything for him and all he ever wanted was for us to be together, be good to each other, and to do our best taking care of the love of his life.  I do believe that the primary reason he had the strength, along with his faith, to beat cancer twice was so that he could stick around to take care of his wife, Angela.  He prayed daily for a miracle without realizing that the miracle was how close we are as a family and our common goal of taking care of Mom. 

He was a very faithful man, never missing a Sunday to go to church, unless he was in really bad shape. When Mom went with us to church, he would hold her hand and then eventually, he would grab her by the shoulder to bring her up for communion, even though she was past the point where she understood what was going on at church or that she should even be going there. Seeing him in his Sunday routine, from how every Sunday he would go early to church and would kneel to pray the rosary before mass, and then afterwards, mention how much his knees hurt for being in that position so long, to the way he walked up to get communion, was something to see.
 

Since his retirement in 2005 and move to SC, we got to really know a different person than what we knew in NJ.  Time changes people.  Dad was a changed person, but at his core, he was the same.  We just never really understood that.

Dad would work during the week and after work and dinner, would hangout mostly in the living room but many times in his bedroom, watching TV.  He worked hard and it showed.  On weekends, he would hang out, every weekend, in the Spanish Club, playing dominoes, pool, having a few beers - much to our resentment. When he wasn't doing that, he was working in his garden tending to his tomatoes and other stuff he grew.  That was probably his biggest struggle, to leave his routine, his friends, the club and move to SC.  But once he made up his mind, it was done.  He looked forward, not back.

Dad was taken out of school when he had completed his 2nd grade so that he could take care of the animals and bring lunch to his father who worked in the field.  Work was so important for him but at the same time, his regret. Besides our family trip to Puerto Rico every 5-7 years or so, primarily to see family, he never really had what we would call "a vacation".  Many a times, he would cry because he felt like any opportunity he had to do something with his life, was taken away from him, at a young age.  Mostly, his desire to finish school.  So he put all of his energy in his work, and he was serious about it. Something he instilled in all of us.  For most of his life, he was a landscaper and I remember growing up and going with him to cut the grass at one of the places he had to take care of.  Towards the later years, he was a factory worker, and worked to the point where he became the union rep at the factory.

When the time came, he retired and moved down to be with us.  He worked every day until he retired at 69, saving up his social security checks so he could put his down payment on the house they could finally afford.   At 70 years of age with his wife at 63, they not only bought their first house, it was a brand new house that had just been completed in a new neighborhood.  The ultimate dream home. Throughout my entire life, mom would constantly ask me if one day, I would be able to buy a house for her, but in the end, they did it themselves.  I still cry just thinking about how happy they were, and how proud we were, that day.

He did an amazing job taking care of his lawn and his garden.  He had years of practice and took it very seriously. We encouraged him to start walking and even about 5 months before he passed, he would go walk, and come back and cut the grass.  It did get to the point when he had to rely on us to cut his grass because he could not do that anymore.  However, when I would do it, he would only want me to cut the grass and would tell me that Manny, my brother-in-law, would be coming to edge and weed whack it.  Little did I know, he had made arrangements with him to do that because apparently I sucked at it.  He would complain that I was in a rush and would do a horrible job :)  He would not tell me that though.  What I heard was the Manny had offered to do that.

His garden though, that was something.  Every year, he would grow watermelons, beans, pumpkins and other stuff, primarily from seeds he would get from his brother in Puerto Rico.  His tomatoes never had a chance, due to the horrible dirt and the constant beating of the sun, because according to dad, he lived on top of a hill in a desert, "en esta loma, no crece nada".  I finally picked up his habits and started my own garden.  This year, we are planting his seeds that he had stored in the refrigerator and will be growing all of his items, in various places, including the back of his house.

At one point, I mentioned to him that we were going to start making meals for him because he was struggling with his health.  His response to me was, "Rafy, don't take that away from me.  Let me cook.  It's ok if you want to help with the yard and you guys are already taking care of Angelita, but I have nothing else to do.  I can continue to cook".  And cook he did.  Dad was known for cooking and boasted about he was even a better cook that mom and he had taught her how to cook.  We never really knew for sure if that was true as mom would not really push back.  Dad was always cooking and making things for us.  For every holiday, dad would make the rice, we would make everything else.  Whenever we had out of town family visitors, dad would prepare the meals and make his famous rice.  We would be responsible for lunch and taking them out but dinner was at dad's house.  He showed his love through his cooking and amazing food.  We continue to try to replicate his meals but they are not the same.   I miss walking in seeing the spices ready, about an hour before he would start to actually cook, smelling the food that was cooked or getting his voicemails saying he was done, but a bit too early because it got ahead of him.  Which frankly, was every time he cooked.

         

Dad first left Jayuya around 1955 or 1956. Trying to find a decent job in Puerto Rico that paid a good wage was impossible.  In NJ, he would work during the spring, summer and fall as a landscaper, but then winters would head back to Puerto Rico.  He never really wanted to leave and his heart was still back "home" in Jayuya.  That's actually why he never really bought a house in NJ.  He always thought he would go back and build a home on his "parcela" but that never came about.  This would be the routine every year until he and mom got married.  He and mom made the decision when mom was pregnant with me that they would move finally and the back and forth trips stopped.

He was a very proud Puerto Rican.  Not the standoffish kind that has never really been there and understands what it really means to be Puerto Rican, but the kind that has more like a spiritual connection with that island like he had.  His Jibaro Music was always playing at home or in his car.

His car had a ton of Puerto Rican stickers on it, including the necessary "el Gallo" (the rooster) emblazoned with the PR flag, several flags and one of the island shape.  We called it the Puerto Rican Mobile and when we decided to hand it off to Evelyn, because that is what he would have wanted, the condition was that she could not remove the stickers.

My ringtone for him was Lamento Borincano, and specifically the Marc Anthony version.  In it, he says:

"La mañana entera sin que nadie pueda su carga comprar

Su carga comprar

Todo.

Todo está desierto, el pueblo está muerto de necesidad

De necesidad

Se oye este lamento por doquier

De mi desdichado Borinquen

Y triste.

El jibarito va pensando así, diciendo así, llorando así por el camino

Que será de Borinquen mi Dios querido?

Que será de mis hijos y de mi hogar?

Borinquen.

La tierra del Edén, la que al cantar el gran Gautier llamo la perla de los mares

Ahora que tu te mueres con tus pesares

Déjame que te cante yo también.

Borinquen, de mi amor..."

He represented everything in that song. Worried about his wife, his family, his home and his Puerto Rico.  Whenever I play the song, I immediately begin to cry.  However, the lack of the ringtone going off every week, is even more painful.  Dad was and forever will be, my Jibarito.  My desire to learn more about Puerto Rico, the culture, the people, my family and especially my ancestors is at its core, because of my dad and the fact that deep in his heart, that is who he was.  Proud to be un Jibaro from Jayuya.

I pay more attention to the lyrics of those older songs to understand the meaning of them in relation to him.

His favorite time though, was Christmas when the aguinaldos and memories of the parrandas would come out in full force.  We gave him one years ago and the look on his face when we showed up, how he sang and how happy he was, will be forever etched in our minds.  I still listen to all of that music, especially when taking care of mom, every Saturday.  I play it to help remind her, and of course myself, of our Jibarito.

Growing up I remember the Puerto Ricans from the town I grew up in, always using the phrase Jibaro in a demeaning way, implying a country person instead of someone "from the city".  Which was supposedly better, according to them.  As I got older though, I realized they were completely wrong because of my dad, the family back in Jayuya and what I came to really understand about what that really means.

From the website El Boricua, "Jíbaro is a term used to refer to mountain people, who lived "in-land" in the heart of the island, and are the backbone of the Puerto Rican culture."  To me, it is probably the best description of what dad represented.  Honor, Honesty, Bravery, Tenacity, Hospitality, and as the website continues to describe, Self Sufficiency, Stubbornness and Mucho Orgullo!

The stubbornness especially came out when he was playing dominoes, which besides watching baseball on TV, was the only thing he ever really wanted to do. He was amazing at it too.  Before the first hand had gone around, he had already figured out what everybody had and was trying to put us in a position where he would take advantage of that and get as many points as possible.  It got so frustrating at times that it felt like entrapment.

It was also painful to listen to the "Rafy, why did you not go here when you had the chance...etc..." comments.  I would piss me off to no end since I had no clue what the heck I did wrong or what play, 3-4 plays back he was referring to.

Looking back at those moments, I am not sure if he was trying to "teach" us how to play by pointing out what we did wrong, or just making sure we understood how much he knew.  It was especially hard to tell when he would say that he won, when you consider that this is a partner based game.

What I would give to play another round, despite knowing that I was definitely going to get yelled at.

When it came to sports though, Baseball was it.  Nothing else mattered and it was his pastime. A die hard Mets fan, dad would prefer to watch the Mets on TV than go to a local baseball game.  We tried multiple times to get him to go to the Greenville Drive games, and while once in a blue moon he would go, most of the times he would just say no, that he was just going to stay home.  We knew immediately that it was because the Mets were playing.  It did not matter if they were in a complete losing streak or not and in last place.  He was not a fair weather fan.

The only exception to that norm was when the Big or Senior League World Series tournament was underway and the Puerto Rican team was here.

The games are always the end of July or first week of August and it did not matter how hot it was going to be, Dad would show up about 30 minutes before the game started to get the best seat at the bleachers, with his cushioned seats and umbrella in tow.

I would always see him there with mom, and when mom became bedridden, the girls would make arrangements to stay with her so that dad could go to the games.

In 2018, when the tournament started again, just three months after dad's passing, during the entire first game while I was in the dugout where I usually am with the team, I could not stop crying almost the entire game because I was in my usual spot but he was not in his.  I kept looking over to an empty bleacher while at the same time feeling like I had the worst sore throat I have ever had due to the gigantic lump in my throat.  It was 3 months after my team's number one fan was gone, forever.  It will never be the same.

He was so happy one year that Puerto Rico came and they were doing great, that he even made his famous rice for them.







Lastly, how we remember dad, was how much he adored his family, especially his grandchildren and great grandchildren, how much they adored him and miss him so much.  From Adrian asking why Papa's heart was bad while taking out a plastic screwdriver and saying that he could fix it, to Brielle bringing flowers regularly to his gravesite, to Lexi holding on to one of the overly used plastic bowls that Papa used to send her food in, to Angela who feels honored to be living in Papa's house, to Joshua who wanted one thing only, the recliner he took his last breath in, to Dan who wanted his Jibaro Music, to Tony who broke the door down and had to call 911, to Michael who is constantly reminded about how he looks like you, to Mom who I am sure, deep in her heart knows that a piece is missing, to everyone of us who lost the patriarch of our family.

We have missed you everyone of these 365 days since you left us, but we will never forget you.