My father died, and it feels incredibly foreign to say that out loud. With no direct siblings I find myself existing in a vacuum of shared childhood memories. I am the sole guardian of my reminiscences, and it is a difficult road to travel.
He died little over a month ago, at the tender age of 93. Oh please, don’t dismiss his death just because the man had a long and full life. That shouldn’t disqualify anyone’s pain.
Yes, he had a life well-lived, and he will be missed.
I’ve always seen him as the perfect imperfect hero, at least in my world. This is a man who raised himself by his bootstraps, got himself through college in spite of his low social status. Poverty, really. He graduated from law school, opened a legal office with some university friends, and a few years later decided, on a whim, to take the diplomatic corps entrance exam. He passed, packed his bags, and moved to Rio de Janeiro for diplomacy school.
This is a man who learned six languages, who had an insatiable desire for traveling, culture, art, and worldly pleasures. This is a man who met characters from our history books: Che Guevara, Deng Xiaping, Yasser Arafat, Pele, and several presidents. He did it all. He lived thoroughly.
This is a man with extensive political knowledge, who negotiated for larger air and maritime space for Brazil, who served on boards of international organizations, who read voraciously daily, and recited poetry from different countries and artists. This is a man who woke up every day with a different song stuck in his head, one he would whistle and sing and walk in rhythm to for the remainder of his day, until he finally went to sleep only to wake up again to a different melody.
That’s him. All of that, and so much more, fit into this human puzzle that is my father.
Yes, he lived a full life, and he delighted in everything this world gave him.
This is a man who suffered through a divorce and a rocky second marriage due, in large part, to his lust for life, experiences, and women. This is a man whose brain held equal parts intellect and depression, often balancing on the edge of sanity only to occasionally fall through and dive into deep bipolar episodes. This is also the man who could be just as dismissive of others as he could be generous.
What a walking conundrum. A live, lively, mess of humanitarian drive and human flaws.
This is a man who helped several families relocate from China to Brazil, as they fled the harsh realities of their country’s politics. A man who embraced victims of sexual abuse that found their way to his embassy, female servants to rich, powerful men in an Arab country who, by word of mouth, believed they could escape to the Brazilian embassy and not have to be returned to their abusive bosses. He fought for them too, was able to release a few, but at the same time he catcalled beautiful women in the streets. A marvelous man, a marvelous mesh of admiration and reprimand.
This is also the man who sat me on his lap as a child and showed me every kind of book imaginable. Encyclopedias, history books, tourist books, poetry books, storybooks, political books. He carried a library inside his heart and his brain, and I was always eager to unlock those wonders. This is the man who picked me up from school and took me on walks on the beach. The man who winked at me as he promised my mother we would only play in shallow waters, knowing fully well that we would end up on a floating platform far from shore, pulling ourselves out of the ocean and resting while watching dolphins, squids, and fish swim by. This is also the man with the (unfortunate) idea of jumping into an inflatable row boat with his young daughter, together bobbing through waves and open sea only to have the boat capsize, his daughter holding on to its ropes while he tried (unsuccessfully) to drag it back to shore. He ended up with chest pains from the effort, and two kayakers had to rescue father and child, returning both to a fuming mother (she poked holes in that boat, and we weren’t allowed out to open sea again).
This is a man whose loud laughter echoed through parties, whose sense of humor allowed for self-ridicule, and who tried hard not to take life so seriously, even if life dictated otherwise.
This is a man whose mother died in his arms, on the floor of his Chicago townhouse while he waited for help. He had paid for his mother’s tickets to the United States, where he worked, and since she refused to travel by plane out of sheer panic, he got her a full cruise experience instead. She eventually made her way to his American home, where she died of a heart attack months later. He always recounted this story, the painful recollection causing his smile to turn down in a grimace as he relived his past trauma of loss.
See? Everyone suffers from loss, and grief knows no bounds.
This is the man whose wonderous brain decided to gradually shut down, dementia painstakingly sinking its sadistic claws into human essence. This is also the man whose eyesight vanished by means of macular degeneration, leaving enough to recognize faces and shapes, but not allowing for adequate focus on letters and text. How cruel a fate for such an avid reader!
This is the man I currently grieve, whose wrinkled hands I can no longer hold, whose stubby white beard will no longer prickle my face as I kiss his cheek, whose white, silky, silver hair my fingers will no longer caress. My dad, my ninety three-year old father who still said he loved me, cherished our moments together between cappuccinos and snacks, and who enjoyed dancing to Frank Sinatra even if it meant just holding on for balance as his tired feet shuffled to the soft ballads.
This man made it, in spite of everything, and certainly because of my mother’s support. He lived completely, he loved fiercely, and I’ll miss him forever. Yes, I’m grateful for the time I had with my imperfectly broken hero, but that won’t stop me from wishing I had one more dance, one more coffee break, one more wrinkled smile.
Just one more. Perhaps two? No more.
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