When I look at my son I feel as if I am placing myself in the shoes of my father and I become cognizant of the special bond that has bound fathers with their children here-in-before.
I think to myself, if tragedy befell this child I am not sure I would be able to survive it. Still, my experience with my father’s death made me painfully aware that death forces human beings to reflect on the meaning of that bond and to place it into a new context in order to endure death's devastating nature.
When I lost my father I was terribly shaken. I felt that a part of me had perished. I felt very vulnerable and very mortal. My sense of security vanished because the shield between me and all my fears was gone. I now had to fend for myself. It felt like I was five years old again and I was lost in a public setting. I felt alone.
I tried to overcome my melancholy state and to come to terms with my father’s death by rationalizing it. I researched and wrote about the life expectancy of Latino males. I found that having lived to the age of 70, according to Census statistics, my father lived beyond his life expectancy. It was published in the Houston Chronicle. But the exercise did not provide much solace. As I always avoid the subject of my father’s death with my immediate family, for me, like many others, grieving became a very excruciating solitary journey.
It is going on ten years since my father died. Still, I am sometimes overwhelmed with emotion as I relive the experience every time a friend loses his father, or when I listen to the radio and I hear songs that I know he liked. Hearing those songs always make me feel spiritually close to my father. But the tears come as I recall that my father would often sing some of those songs around the house when I was a child. I often wonder if it is unhealthy to still feel such intense emotions.
Like many children, although not the oldest, I assumed the responsibility of caring for my parents. The proximity created a great closeness between me and my father. We learned to value each other’s point of view. And we grew to quietly appreciate each others’ strengths and accept our weaknesses. I was very proud of him for doing the best he could and not running away from the responsibility of providing for his children. I regret not having the courage to be able to verbalize how I felt about him when he lived next door to me. Like many fathers, in his own stoic way, he expressed how he felt in small acts that children often take for granted. For me, every morning before I left to work, he would get up and clean the windshield of the vehicle I drove. And at regular intervals, he would check every aspect of the vehicle to make sure that it was in safe working condition.
Difficult as it has been, the loss of my father taught me several things that help me place the parent-child relationship into perspective. I learned that no matter how small or large, a child’s accomplishments bring enormous joy to a father. And fathers experience immense satisfaction in knowing that they raised a child who is responsible and a productive citizen. My mother would tell me that it would always please my father greatly when my work and his last name would be the subject of stories in print, radio or television.
My father's death also made me realize that a child’s relationship with his father does not end at the time of death. Children can continue to honor their father name in every act they manifest. I also learned that the saying "time heals all wounds” is not true. Time merely provides you with an accumulation of new days to get used to the idea of not having your father physically present. I realized that the size of the scar and the rawness of the wound are directly related to the magnitude and depth of the bond that you shared with your father.
Lastly, I learned that whether physically present or not, our fathers never cease to exist. That is, death may alter our bond with our fathers, but it can never break it. Our fathers are present within us every second of the day, in our genes, in our minds and most importantly, in our hearts.
