Hook, Line and Sinker

There is a famous quote, believed to be a Chinese proverb that says: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

When I was about 10 years old, my uncle Tito took me fishing for the first time. I did not even have a fishing pole and when I told him that he said don't worry about it. We'll figure it out.

We get to this reservoir that was the primary fresh water source for the county. Fishing was actually prohibited in this fresh water lake, but that is another story. We pull up to the edge of the lake and get out of the car. My uncle with his tackle box and gear and several of the longest and coolest fishing poles I had seen. It was clear he was going for the big stuff.

He proceeds to grab a fairly descent size branch from one of the trees at the edge of the lake and ties some fishing line to it and adds a hook. He tells me to sit under the bridge and to be quiet but just drop the line in the water. That evening, I caught 14 sunnies or brim, Lafayette's as they were known in that area, and a good sized catfish! I was in fish heaven and that day changed my life.

As I got older I would come home from school, drop my books and head down to the local pier to fish with all of my friends. There were times that we would have about 8 of us all lined up fishing, crabbing and selling the eels we would catch to people that wanted them. It became my past time but was, and has always been, my retreat. My chance to escape the challenges and pains of the teenage years.

Even today as an adult, I love to spend time with a pole in my hand, taking in the fresh air and trying to catch the big one that seems to always get away with my bait.

With the tons of fish I have caught over the years, there are some special memories that I have, such as fishing with my friends, or more recently when I went deep sea fishing with Dan, Nick and Dan's friends for his bachelor party. We were on fire that day and caught an amazing amount of fish. Though this trip was a couple of years ago, everyone to this day still talks about that time and that we should do it again.

However the one that made the most impact in my life was that of my uncle taking me fishing for the first time. It was a bonding time that he shared with me, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. He was showing me that I was so important to him that he would share with me what he loved to do most.

His simple act showed me that life was for living and for a purpose. At a time when most adults did not care to do anything with the younger generation, it was important to set an example and become a positive role model in a young life. Mine.

In Matthew 4:19, Jesus said to Simon (Peter) and his brother Andrew “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Obviously, it is not the literal sense of fishing but to follow Jesus and be an example for others to follow.

At times, it seams with the craziness of the moments we are living, we cannot be bothered to do the simple things in life like teach a young child to go fishing.  To step away from the TV and other electronics and be one with nature.  

I have fished with friends, my boys, my nephews and most recently with my 3 year old grand nephew Liam.  With such an amazing lake in the back of his house, he had never gone fishing.  

Every time I visit my Florida family, I fish on that lake.  I usually go in the afternoon and evenings but have found myself even going fishing before I start my day.  Trying to catch the big bass, which are definitely out there, but mostly to catch my breath and be at peace before I start my day. 

During one of those evenings, Liam was inside the house and said "Is that my Tio out there?" and then preceded to walk down to the dock where I was fishing.  I asked him if he wanted to fish and he said yes.  I asked him to sit down in a chair, primarily because I did not want him to fall in the lake, but also so I did not hook him myself during my casts, and then handed him a pole.  I put some bread on it and told him we were going to catch a big fish.

I told him when he caught it, to yell Tio and that I would run and reel it in.  Of course, being the busy body he is, he reeled it in a couple of times himself and would also squirm off the chair.  But I placed him back and told him he had to be quiet and just look at the float.    He was distracted looking at the other side of the lake when I saw his float go under water.  I said "Liam, you have a fish!".  He got excited and tried to real it in but I grabbed the pole and reeled the fish as I did not want it to get away.

Once I did, he screamed like I had caught the Loch Ness monster and it was going to eat him up!

We managed to calm him down and pose for a picture with his first catch! 

This brought back the memories of my uncle helping me catch my first catch.  Life came full circle and I could not be happier.  Though it did bother me that the fish Liam caught was bigger than the fish I have caught all month on that lake.  I'm still chasing the big ones.

As I have gotten older, I think more about my words and my actions.  I genuinely try to do the right thing and be an example for others to follow.  Most of the times, I get it right.

This is one of those times and I hope that Liam grows up to appreciate and understand how impactful this simple moment could actually become.   I love you Muchacho.

A special thank you to my own Tio for setting the example for me to follow.

Algo es Algo!

I was recently reminded about a phrase that my mom used to say all the time.  "Algo is Algo" which translates to "something is something" but really what she meant was, "at least it is something".

Mom used to work for K-Mart, but started really late in her life to work outside the house.  

I've written previously about how she practically raised the town I grew up in by babysitting numerous kids while simultaneously raising the 4 of us.  Those days were long and non-stop, every week, no vacation and no real escape.  So when I say she started to work really late in life, that is really a disservice to all of the long hours she put in babysitting.  That was really hard work and it is very wrong to say otherwise. 

We grew up in an apartment in a brownstone building that must have been 100 years old.  Needless to say, there was no air conditioning and a single heater in the family room heating up the entire apartment.

So when mom started to work at K-Mart, at around the age of 50, it was a BIG THING in our family.  I remember her calling me telling me that she wanted to get a job.  Something that my father was very much against but she got her way.  She told me that she was offered this job there and that she knew she could do it.  Here hours would start later in the evening but she wanted to save for her casita, if she were to ever to move down here as she wanted and we begged.

She worked from about '94 or so until she retired and moved to SC in 2005.  There were times, when I would visit NJ, that we knew she was working, and we would sneak up to the area she worked, and would just watch her, as she picked up all of the clothes that people would take off the racks and shelves and restock them for the next person to do the same.

It was something to see, as she greeted store shoppers with her warm, welcoming smile, while at the same time, shake her head as she picked up the stuff thrown around.

  

She turned 63 in 2005 when she retired and months after, they moved into their first house.  I was so proud of them.

After retirement, she started to collect a pension check that supplemented her social security.  A whopping $25 a month for the 10+ years of service to the Big K!

Every month, she got that check for a job well done.  And every month, we would make fun about it.  When we opened the statement in the mail, I would say Mom, you got another deposit of your big pension.   Dad would immediately laugh at the comment and say, "Hah, that won't even cover the phone bill!" to which Mom would respond, "bueno, algo es algo" and we would all laugh.   

The running joke was that if Mom had asked me to do something, I would do it but at the end would say that we would send her a bill.  One the she could pay with per pension check! 

At times, her answer was a "Sure. What do you think, that I don't have money?".  At other times, her reply was a disillusioned, "Bendito, you know I only get $25 for my pension".  

Even though it was only $25, the fact that she got that check regularly, made her feel like she could buy anything.  

Mom always looked at the bright side of things and truly was the eternal optimist.  I miss that and the jokes about her monthly deposit. 

The All Too Familiar Sounds of Shuffling Feet

I was reading the latest news on my phone in the lobby while waiting for Luisa, when I heard the voices of a son talking to his mom and his mom responding to him faintly as they walked into the building.  As they walked past me, I looked up and took a glance at the 40 something year old holding his mother tightly in his arms with a large shoulder bag in tow, and his mother who apparently was born in 1935, walked with him staring straight ahead.  He was assuring her that "he got her" and that they were almost where they needed to go.

I looked back down and tried to stare at my phone as my eyes started to swell up and the first tear began to roll down my face.  It was all too familiar for me.  

As the son with his mom approached the counter, the lady at the registration desk asked him what seemed to be the problem and if they needed to be checked.  He proceeded to tell her that he noticed something about her left eye and wanted someone to take a look at it.  She asked them to sit in the chair while she called over a nurse to take a look at it.

The son removed the bag from his shoulder and placed it on one of the two chairs in front of the desk.  Then he positioned himself behind his mom and grabbed her from her waist and tried to gently position her in front of the other chair.  At this point the mother grabs onto the desk, locks her back and legs, refusing to sit down for fear of falling down.  As her son continues to reassure his mother with "I got you mom. I got you.", "I won't let you fall.  You can let go.".

I look up while all of this is happening and immediately remember the many times that I took my mom to a doctor's office or even trying to get her to sit in her own chair at the dining room table so we can feed her.  By now, I am balling as all of the flash backs hit me pretty hard.  My voice playing back in my mind, trying to sooth my mom, her grip of death on whatever she was latching onto at the time.  

The lady at the registration desk called over a nurse and had her look at the mother and telling the son that it was good for him to bring her.  It appears that she may have had a stroke a few days earlier and her eye was droopy.  The nurse asked him when he had first noticed it to which he responded that he just noticed it when he saw her today, but apparently it has been like this for a couple of days.  When he went to visit her today, he noticed her eye and asked his dad what had happened to his mom.  His dad said that she just started to look like that a couple of days ago.  The son then proceeded to tell the nurse that he had specifically spoken with his dad a couple of days earlier and had asked how his mother was.  The father had responded that something appeared to be wrong with her eye but that she was ok and that they were waiting for a call back from the doctor.  It turned out that it was the dentist that was calling back that day and not the doctor.

The nurse indicated that only within the first 3 hours at most, could it really be determined if someone was having a stroke but that they would take a look at her shortly.

The son got up, tried to lift the mother from the chair only to meet resistance again from the mother who would not stand up, afraid to fall down.  She eventually stood, with the son's repeated voice trying to comfort her that he had her.  

As they walked halfway across the room to an empty bench where they could sit next to each other, the mother's feet shuffling across the floor as he walked her ever so gently.  He sits her in the chair and then tells her that he is just going outside for a minute to get on a call.

Again another reminder of the times I had to juggle conference calls in between doctor visits, taking the moments I could to try to keep the ball going at work while still trying to do what I could, to be there for my parents.

The tears flowed unconditionally and I felt like I was breathing into a bag because of the mask I was wearing.

After a few minutes, I got up and walked across the room to look out the window and see if I could catch a glimpse of where the son was.

As I saw him get out of his car and start to walk back to the medical center, I walked out the door so I can meet up with him.  I know I caught him off guard when I stopped right where he was and started to talk with him.

I told him that I had lost my mom just about 2 years ago and that I too understood and respected what he was going through. I told him that mom battled Alzheimer's for 12 years and that I just felt that I had to tell him how I wished him all the best, that God Bless him and his mother.  That he reminded me of myself and what we went through and that he was doing the "right" thing.  After all, we only have one mother. 

His response, a simple "Thank you Sir" and in he went to be by his mother's side.  I walked back in and sat in my chair waiting for Luisa.  When another nurse opens the back door and calls the name of the mother, "Johnny Mae"...

The son and mother stand up and start the long, slow walk, to the front of the room.  The nurse starts moving faster to meet them half way and ask if she would like a wheelchair.  The mother responds with a quick no.  She says that she can walk. 

They walked back into the medical office so they can be seen.

Next month will be the 2nd anniversary of mom's passing from her 12 year battle with Alzheimer's.  It's moments like this that remind me of the gut wrenching memories of feeling helpless to really cure what ailed my parents, especially my mom but to do all that I could at that particular time.

While I don't wish for mom to have spent any second longer in this life having to deal with what she was struggling through, I do sort of miss those moments of holding her tightly and reassuring her that "I had her".  

I miss you mom.

You Have 2 Dads?

Luisa and I have been catching up on our DVR recordings of "This Is Us" recently.  It was a show we used to watch religiously with an amazing script, great acting and themes that manage to pull the strings of all of our emotions.  

Our viewing of that show came to a screeching halt in 2018 when we began to experience the severe emotional pain of our own loses in our family and we could not bear to add salt to those very painful wounds.  We had something like 24 episodes that continued to record and last night, on March 11th, we caught up with the episode where they were trying to deal with the recent diagnosis of their mother's Alzheimer's diagnosis. 

In the episode, Randall, is dealing with the pain of the loss of his 2 fathers (biological and adopted), not knowing his biological mother, and now having to deal with losing his adopted mother to this horrible disease.

He makes the statement of his two fathers, and immediately I mention to Luisa that it reminded me of an incident that occurred with our youngest son Nick when he was about 5 years old. 

Nick has always been the very positive going person that always sees the glass half full in everything.  "Nick, how did you do in your test today?" we would ask.  To which we would get a thumbs up and a response of "Great!".  Only later for us to come to the realization that he had actually bombed it... but hey, always the eternal optimist.

He had a kid in class that told him that he had 2 dads.  His biological dad and his step dad because his mother had recently re-married.  Nick thought that was so amazing that he told his friend, "You have 2 Dads?", "That is AWESOME!".  

It left quite an impression on the kid that he told his mother and his mother let us know that same day  how wonderful and receptive Nick was to this fact and that it meant a lot to them how cool Nick's reaction was.

I then thought of my own two dads.  My father, Rafa, who would have turned 84 on February 23rd of this year and who I lost in April 2018, and my father in law, Miguel, who passed away on March 11, 2019 and has a birthday coming up shortly.  Having woken up on the 11th full of emotions and Facebook reminders of his passing, only to be reminded further of this loss when watching this episode.

Both of them impacted me in so many ways that I would not be the father I am today without them in my life.

To learn from Nick's eternal optimism of having a glass half full, I try not to be depressed about losing both of my dads during this time and thought about how great they were.  About how much I appreciated the fact that I had two amazing father figures that I will be eternally grateful to have and for the constant reminders of who they were, how much they were loved and how much they both loved me.

I miss them both dearly along with all of the laughter's we shared. 

Next month, on April 2nd, will be the painful reminder of coming home from FL and not seeing my dad alive one last time or holding his hand as he departed this earth.  The following month will be the reminder of my mom joining him after her more than 12 year battle with Alzheimer's.

Finally, in the episode, Randall is struggling with his mother's Alzheimer's diagnosis and how he needs to do everything possible to not lose her like he lost everyone else.  It was a painful reminder of my attempt to want to take mom to an Alzheimer's specialist 3 hours away to get her into a clinical trial.  I could not bare the thought of not doing everything I could for my mother to prevent the desease that would ultimately take her life.  I remember clearly the day that I left her house, after having driven back from Charleston and concluding, on my way to my own house, that it was not something we could put mom through.  

The torture of putting her through 3.5 hour trips each way, to a clinic where she would undergo the additional stress of having to answer questions such as who is the president, what day is it, what is your birthday... 2 x per week, and then to be exposed to untested medicine that could give her serious side-effects, or maybe worse yet, the hope given by what could in the end be just a placebo that would not have cured her, was just unimaginable for me.  I could not do that to her.  

Randall has not come to this conclusion yet, but that was the day I concluded I was losing my mom and I was powerless to do anything about it.  One of the most painful days I have ever experienced and to some extent, even more so than when she actually passed away.

In this one episode, Luisa and I saw and replayed in our minds, everything that we had recently experienced in our lives.  It was a definitely case of Life imitating Art and Art imitating Life.

The Morning Sun

Having camped overnight many times over the years with my Eagle Scout sons, there is something heartwarming about waking up and seeing the sun come up, to warm the earth and your soul after a very cold, dark night.  Waking up to the prospect of a new beginning, no matter what the night before has bestowed on you, the chills of the cold air, the strange sounds of the howling winds and exposed outdoors, the dark shadows that make you paranoid and seeing things.

In the past when our country was in crisis, such as the 9/11 attacks, the Oklahoma and Atlanta Olympic bombings, the Emanuel AME church shooting and most recently when we saw our own citizens assault the Capitol building with the sole intent of silencing the voice of the many for the idealistic rights of the few, we have always expected and relied on our leaders to rise up to the occasion and lead us out of the darkness.  Even if it is a darkness that we, Americans, have ourselves created or made worse by the absolutely disastrous way we have behaved during this pandemic.

As I write this post, to lose more than 400,000 of our grandparents, parents, siblings, children, family members, all of them citizens and/or members of this incredible nation and not have leaders show empathy and unity that has inspired us to come together in the past and do what is right for one another is a national disgrace.  To not be able to rely upon our elected leaders to amass the full power of our Federal Government, and guide us out of this never-ending darkness has been painful to experience and a crying shame.

Tonight, as I watched and cried during the memorial tribute lead by the upcoming administration, I was not thinking about how many of the white lights representing the 400,000 lives were republican or democrat but how we were all one and the same.  The same members of this invincible nation that had suffered during past trauma and how for the first time in over 4 years, we will have the unified empathy of a nation, to come together and have hope that tomorrow, with the Morning Sun, we will be able to see the light that will take us out of this darkness we have been living through.

That the battle for the soul of our country has been won, by those that remember the dark days past and how we have been inspired to overcome the darkness of prior times.  That we can rise up to the occasion, turn the corner, and be the beacon of light that America has been in the past not just to ourselves, but to the world.

For as it is so appropriately stated in our Constitution: 

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. 

God Bless America.

In Good Times and In Bad, Till Death Do Us Part

On December 15th, 1962 my parents took their vows in Holy matrimony at la Parroquia Nuestra Señora de la Monserrate in Jayuya, Puerto Rico.  Not sure of what their life was going to be like or where it would take them, they went on a journey that can only be described as a very rough start, an incredible ride, and a rough ending with the terminal disease that would eventually take my mom.  

The beginning of their life together was hard during that time.  Clearly a sign of the times in the small mountain town of PR but also due to the hard life they were living.  From very poor beginnings, where my mom literally lived down the mountainside from Dad, being 6 years older than her, he would see her grow up with her dad on dirt floors in a single room wooden house, at times he would tell us that he knew she went days without food because of how poor they were.  

Mom lost her own mother when she was 6 and was forced to live away from her dad until she was 11.  Only to come back to help take care of the house, her father and her brothers until she met Dad who was her first real love and the man that would mean the world to her all the way until she would eventually forget even who he was.  

Early in our years I recall that while dad was clearly "the man of the house", dad depended on mom for being the rock that he leaned on during their struggles.  However in the end, he was the rock she hung unto and could not let go. 

The phrase, "lo que tu padre diga", i.e, "whatever your dad says", was very common at home.  She would not make a decision without him, but if the decision was not what we were looking for, mom would go up to bat for us, speaking with dad separately until she convinced him and he caved to what we wanted.

My parents were very humble, honorable, serious, funny, dependable, strict but extremely loving.  While Dad was the provider of the house, Mom was the care giver.   Mom was also the Jiminy Cricket of the family, always saying either "Rafa" or "Rafy - to me" if he and I were to say something that was inappropriate or she did not agree with.  We should be better than that.  

Dad was the comedian whose jokes sometimes went too far.  When he developed cancer in 2011, he lost his hair and he had a picture with he and mom in it.  As mom was losing her memory, he would put her on the spot and ask her, who was the bald guy in the picture with her?  Mom of course had no idea it was he but that didn't stop him from asking and then laughing when we yelled at him for doing that to her.

Their faith unwavering, Dad always prayed for a miracle cure for mom's illness.  After all, if his prayers helped him beat cancer twice, why would they not help her.  One time I asked Mom, as I was putting her to bed and she was already beginning to forget who I was, if she believed in God.  Her answer was an immediate, and resounding "Why, Of course".

My life, our life, with Mom and Dad had lots of moments of incredible happiness and dark moments of despair, pain and agony especially as we helped them through their final stages of life on this earth.  However, the one thing we never doubted was how much they truly loved each other.

Today, we would have been celebrating their 58th wedding anniversary if they were here.  Instead we look at pictures and are grateful for their very true endless love until the very end.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad.  Missing you in ways I cannot describe. 

What happened to our Moral Compass?

One day, we will all look back and wonder, what happened.  How did we get here?  How did we get so wrapped up in our own "individuality" and caring only about "What's in it for me" that we forgot the shared values of being an American with others desiring the same goals?  Others that have the same dreams to be given the same opportunity to go as far as we can through Liberty and Justice FOR ALL.  How did we actually lose the content of our character and the direction of our moral compass?    

As Americans, compared to other countries founded on a specific "cultural identity" I remember when we adored the melting pot of a whole America, where we learned to appreciate, respect, value and actually benefit from others that are different from us but were united in a common goal and mission.  When we were the beacon of the world that made others aspire to be part of our great political experiment.

How did we end up worrying solely about the unborn but not really caring for them once they joined us in this world?  545 kids in cages still unaccounted for.  For those that don't trust the "local" news, here is the story from the BBC, so you can still see it from the eyes of the world as they gaze upon us.   

It is not about who built the cages but how and why they are being used.

That is clearly not what Matthew 19:14 says.  Again since we are only interested in viewing this through our own respective  lenses: https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Matthew 19:14.  While the words may be slightly different there should be no doubt that the meaning is the same.  That we are all, Children of God.

With the Pandemic of 2020, the most vulnerable is our aging population, not to mention our healthcare workers.  While I am comforted that my parents are not around to be exposed to this disease, which would have definitely taken their lives given their health problems, how can we as a country not do everything we could to protect those lives we value so dearly?  I remember seeing this politician say he would give his life to protect the economy and way of life, and wondering why would we even debate this.  Why did we feel we had to choose one over the other?  This is America!  The nation that put a man on the moon!

As we get closer to this election my hope is that we all look deep inside and remember who we are as a people and what really unites us.  During 9/11, we huddled together and cried over our nation's shared loss of 2,977 lives.  With a pandemic that is currently taking this many lives roughly almost every 3 days, and more than 230,000 of our loved ones so far, as it continues to ravage our country.

America is not about a single person or a specific President.  It is about We the People.  It is about us getting together to take care of each other, to respect each other, to Love each other and what we strive for. To make a more perfect union.  Not that it is perfect but that it can be improved, by valuing everything we contribute to it as a society and as a diverse nation.

Words matter.  Our Behavior matters.  Our Soul matters.  Our Moral Compass matters.  

In my final words, I voted, not just for me and for my own values but to represent the over 3 million US citizens and primarily my family living in Puerto Rico that can’t vote for themselves.