My Father's Death

June 19, 2012

I woke up this morning to find out that my father, who had been in the ICU for a few weeks, or perhaps months, had died. My brother Luis had posted just on Sunday, ironically Father’s Day, that he had gone to the hospital to visit him and my father had, in his customary fashion with his other children, kissed his hand before he left. My brother sounded hopeful that his father was going to make it through the aggressive form of cancer that had been diagnosed in his jaw merely a couple of months before.

How did I react to the news? As I had mentioned to my sister Esther when his cancer was first diagnosed, I didn’t have any particular feelings about it since this person had stopped being someone I really cared about much. He was 86 years old and had had many chances in his life to extend a bridge to his other children, but had instead decided that the children from his second marriage were to be the center of his almost fanatical devotion.

 I had practically written him out of my life entirely until upon the recommendation of my friend Stephanie, who felt my corrosive feelings toward him were affecting me negatively, I gave in and extended an olive branch back in 1995 and decided to visit him in Puerto Rico. Although he had not seen me since the death of my sister Lidia in 1989, I got the usual dry peck on the cheek upon arrival at the airport and his non-stop chatter about how much he hated Puerto Rico and its people.  When I remarked that he had managed to live in that island for forty-five years in spite of his overt hatred, he stated he was only waiting for his social security benefits to kick in before retiring to a more civilized place.

My father never showed the slightest interest in my studies, the jobs I held or my future plans, much less inquired about his granddaughter. The last time I visited him in 2004, at his pleading after a medical scare, I gathered the courage to ask him why he had deserted our mother with five kids to make a new life in Puerto Rico. In his typical selfish manner, he told me, a 49-year old woman then, that I would not be able to understand the reasons, but he was writing his memoirs and everything would be explained then. All of this was said while his eyes never left the TV screen as he had refused to turn it off to listen to my query.

My father was a journalist in the 50s and as voracious a reader as I have come to be and the walls of his house were lined with bookshelves groaning under the weight of countless volumes. Realizing the treasure they contained, I tried to ask my father back in 1996, in a most delicate manner, what plans he had made for the disposal of his library upon his passing and in his usual short-sighted way he responded that his books were going to stay where they were.

The incident that will always remain engrained in my memory is of my father warmly greeting one of my sister Emma’s girlfriends when she arrived at the house for dinner and then standing behind her while caressing her hair until he then finally took her hand and kissed it tenderly. I had been watching every one of his moves hating the fact that my father had never gone beyond the usual peck-on-the-cheek greeting for me. As he finished, my father said in the most casual of manners: “I love this girl as if she were my daughter.” To what I felt like retorting: “So what am I, your own daughter? Chopped liver? I had to leave the table under the excuse of having to get up early for my flight while fighting back the tears all the way to my room.

The last time I saw my father, he had flown in to attend my brother’s 60^th birthday in November 2010, and we barely exchanged a couple of cordial sentences including an acknowledgement on his part that my roast pork had met his very demanding standards. I believe he realized then that his presence in our lives was really superfluous and he never attempted to call me again. His children in Puerto Rico have written eloquent obituaries on Facebook describing a man I really never met: a caring, compassionate, devoted and loving father they will miss for the rest of their lives. I wish now that at least one percent of that man had manifested during one of my visits.