Heritage Trip

In just a little over a week, I will be traveling to Puerto Rico with my parents and my sister, something that hasn’t happened in approximately forty years. As a minister and a teacher’s aide, my parents did not make the kind of money that allowed for vacations that required airline travel. As a matter of fact, my parents had not returned to Puerto Rico since they moved here as kids. There just wasn’t the money to do so. We didn’t think we were missing anything, after all we were still vacationing in Ocean Grove on the Jersey shore. It was a beach right?!

Ha! Little did we know what we were missing.

The four of us traveled to Puerto Rico in 1971, it was a strategic move on our parents’ part because it was the last year we would qualify for the half-fare tickets that kids got in those days.

I remember waking up in my great-grandmother’s house, in Peñuelas, trying not to stretch too much because dislodging the mosquito netting was deadly for me. Yes, I’m exaggerating a bit, but mosquitos do love me. A love that is not returned.

All I could smell was the aroma of fresh baked bread from the bakery next door. I definitely took advantage of our proximity to the bakery. A personal sized pan de manteca, slathered with jelly, and washed down with a tall glass of milk. Could life get any better?

When we traveled to Naguabo, Humacao, and Carolina, where my father’s family lived, I met cousins I never even knew existed. For the most part, my paternal grandfather’s family never left the island. They never felt the need to move to the mainland. So that was probably going to be my only chance to meet them. My sister and I, “Las Americanitas”, provided them with comic relief. Great impression we left, huh.

While I have been to Puerto Rico several times with my daughters, we never visited family while we were there. We just wanted to lay on a beach, relax, and get a little sightseeing done. This time I’m excited to be visiting with family, after all if I went by myself I would just be “Samuel’s daughter” or “la hija de Luisa”, and while I will be both those people, I’m eager to hear the tales that will be told over dinner.

So much family history has been lost already because it wasn’t written down. The only great-grandparents, I got to meet, died within six months of each other in the mid-1980s. Aged 101 and 97 at the time of their deaths, they earned their rest. Between 1989 and 2003, I lost all four of my grandparents, people I loved very much and spent a lot of time with. The few aunts and uncles my parents still have, are well into their 80s and 90s. And with my parents in their mid-70s it is almost a challenge to get the family tree complete and start writing the memories that remain. I only wish I had written down the stories that were shared at family gatherings years ago.

Every family needs an archivist, unfortunately we don’t think about it until it’s too late and the storytellers are gone.

To Pop on his eightieth birthday

We were supposed to be together today! We. Were. Supposed. To. Be. Together. Today.

I could just picture it. Spending the Easter weekend together. Going to church together. Eating lasagna and flan together. Cutting a cake together. Maybe going to the beach together. Just like we did three years ago. How were we to know it would be your last earthly birthday.

I want to remember everything about you. Everything.

I remember that you were the one responding to our cries in the middle of the night. Back then we didn’t know that Mom slept like a rock, we only knew that you came to save us from childhood terrors. You were the one who saved me from drowning when I stood up at water’s edge and subsequently fell into Pelham Bay. We almost froze on the subway ride home that day. I imagine that we would’ve frozen if subways were air conditioned back then. I remember our first car. A beige Rambler we called Beachcomber, because it would take us to all the beaches, most especially  Orchard Beach and Ocean Grove.

And speaking of beaches, I remember all those beach vacations. Ocean Grove was our go-to place for three weeks every year. Breakfast was in our rented efficiency. Lunch was sandwiches and fruit on the beach. Dinner was at the Grand Atlantic cafeteria. We were on the beach all day and walked the boardwalk in Asbury Park all night. For church services we went to the Great Auditorium except for that one Sunday when we would drive to Atlantic City and hang on the Steel Pier all day. For one price we got to see movies, attend concerts, and of course, the diving horse show to end the night. We purposefully returned to Ocean Grove after midnight to elude the Sunday no car ban. You grew a goatee every summer and then returned to have all the viejitas in Haverstraw nag you until you shaved.

I remember the year we ditched going down the shore and got on a plane for another kind of shore, a beach of the warm, crystal clear variety. You always spoke about taking us to Puerto Rico but money was always tight, ministers and teachers made no money, something which hasn’t changed. We needed to go when we were old enough to remember the trip and yet young enough to qualify for children’s half fare on the airlines. New experiences were plentiful. We slept under mosquiteros, used letrinas, ate mangos and quenepas right off a tree. We walked next door to buy freshly baked bread and slathered butter and jelly on it before inhaling it. We body surfed at four different beaches and the car’s brakes failed as we were leaving El Yunque. There was no money for hotels, so we stayed with family in Peñuelas and Fajardo. Unfortunately, your family left Punta Santiago before we made it there, or else we definitely would’ve stayed there. We met family we didn’t know existed and got to see the land that the Rivera Melendez family owned back in the day.

Five years ago, we had a family trip to the island, just the four of us. It was a different experience. Dementia had a firm grip on your memories. You were having trouble with balance and used a cane to keep from falling. Your driver’s license had become just a form of identification. And yet, we still had a blast visiting family members and playing dominoes when it rained. We ate at Metropole, your favorite spot, and had mofongo at Raices, washing it down with a cold Medalla.

Despite having lived in Florida for ten years, circumstances brought you home, before you went on to paradise, surrounded by those who loved you the most. Your forward thinking and brilliant planning made the aftermath easier. Mom just had to follow the plan you’d laid out for her.

When your baby brother joined you in heaven, it left us bereft of the original Rivera Garcias. We came together as a family and returned to our old church in the Bronx. The United Church welcomed us all home as we paid honor to everything you all brought to our lives. Knowing that they are all with you, as you celebrate this milestone birthday, offers some comfort, even though we all wish you were here with us.

I remember you. I remember everything about you. Happy Birthday, Pop!

Love always, your Amapola

 

 

 

Living my dash

Birthdays tend to make us reflective, nasty thing that. It’s Friday afternoon, the western skies outside my windows are blooming in shades of blue, purple, and pink, and I’m home in my bata with a wineglass at my elbow. I should be out at some happy hour starting a parranda, instead I’m here being all emo, and shit.

Today’s NaBloPoMo prompt was evil, but I’m not feeling it, so off script we go again. When you work in the court system, you can’t help but see evil in all its manifestations. When murder and mayhem is your bread and butter, you don’t really want to reflect upon it in your off hours.

As far as lives go, mine has been blessed. My dysfunctions kept to a minimum. Yeah, ok, I straighten pictures that are hung crookedly and the first thing I do when I sit down at a restaurant is straighten out the silverware, but that’s minor. In the past I’ve written about my separation and subsequent divorce. I’ve given you the Readers Digest version of my life, I’ve written a love letter to aging, and I’ve even contemplated retirement. But today, as I was reconciling my time and attendance at work, I saw entries in my calendar that made me reflect upon my stage of life. The stage where you are attending more retirement parties and funerals than weddings and baby showers.

We acknowledge that death is a part of life; this year I had two family members die, women who were very important to me at different stages of my life. At work, I lost two co-workers with whom I worked for many years. Both of my parents have been hospitalized in the past twelve months and I haven’t been there. I hate that they’re so far away from me.

Of course, the flip side is that the family has had three babies born, I attended a beautiful wedding, and there are weddings and more babies on the way for next year. Life has balance.

I enjoyed a vacation in Puerto Rico with my parents and sister, something we hadn’t done together in forty years. Yes, we’ve had family vacations in Florida and Dominican Republic, but never just the four of us. We didn’t get to do everything on the agenda, but that’s ok, I got my first capicu and that has to count for something.

Professionally, it was a good year. Invitations to speak at a national juvenile justice conference and at a college’s Hispanic Heritage Month celebration were just the highlights. I continue to volunteer as a board member for an agency working with children and juveniles who have mental health issues and I continue to be a voice for the general public on the Attorney Ethics Committee.

And there was fun to be had. Birthday parties, the grown and the kiddie kind. Yankee games. Being Latino. United People for Latinos in Film, Theater, and TV. Happy Cancer Chick. Soledad Speaks. Monthly brunches with my ladies. Family gatherings and bbqs. Movie screenings. Concerts. My baby girl’s 30th birthday. Writing our Lives writing workshop. Crazy fun at video shoots.

It’s  been a good year. Every year is a good year when you get right down to it. If you are reading this post, you have been a part of my joy. I have prayed for you, I have laughed with you, you have been a part of my life no matter  what. And I thank you.

Tomorrow evening I will join with my family and famigos and we will raise a glass to my 55 years on this Earth. Many people haven’t had the honor of reaching this age. Many others have gone above and beyond. If you give me a thought tomorrow, please do it with a smile at one of my smartass remarks.

So here’s to double nickels, Bitches!