#25 - Thirty Years

I’m feeling happy. Nothing unusual really. I would say my tendency is to be a happy camper, in spite of all going on. And still in thinking about this time of the year I have to take into account that July 10, 2011 marks the 30th anniversary of my father’s death.

On remembering this date last year I wrote the following in Spanish. I try to translate it into English below:

Twenty-nine years ago we found ourselves devastated without you.

Your absence was brand new and overwhelming.

Your heart very suddenly gave up on life.

As it took your body into its nightly sleep it said: “Check you later”

And it stopped beating as if nothing would happen.

It left you with your mouth agape and an expression of pain (or so I thought when I saw you as a corpse: dry, cold and stern),

Your eyes surprised by the sudden quietness

of the vital muscle.

I found myself hollow without my papi.

I blindly obeyed the order to go find a priest.

On my return I saw your Marga on the sidewalk

Crying in bursts of laughter

Telling me I didn’t get a chance to see you.

Your Gurmia, I can’t remember where she hid with our newly shared orphanhood.

Those first months I didn’t cry for you, papi;

after all I was your daughter

and I had learned your lesson well:

The strong, we don’t cry.

Months later my mother found me teary-eyed

leafing through a photo album

and surprised she said to me:

“Oh, m‘ija, so you did love him.”

But it wasn’t until about five years later

by myself at home watching On Golden Pond

when Henry Fonda suffers his heart attack

that I was shaken by a stormn of tears

contained for so long.

I imagined your head in my lap and I rocked you in my arms

While I bawled like I had never bawled before

A river of tears, of “I love yous” and “I miss yous”

I kissed you with the love and tenderness of your spoiled little girl.

Twenty-nine years, papi, and it still pains me to not have you.

Papi: Luis Hernández Villa

I want to believe and I believe

That your spirit is at my side

That every now and then you take a peek into my life

And you’re happy with what I have done with it

Especially with that autumn day when I made you a grandfather

And you felt proud knowing that one of her names is Luisa in your honor.

I carry you here, papi, intimate and close;

But I want you free and happy

In spirit and in memory.