His bambina

My father was the rock of our family. Even though he was a talented businessman, he never stopped trying to do more, be more and extend his capacities. 

He was always looking to create the next opportunity, always looking for the next step up.

We were all so proud of him. His drive and determination rubbed off on his children.

He never got the chance to retire, because he died young. But his zest for life throughout his short time on earth was to work hard and play hard. He pampered himself every other year with a new car, custom-made Italian suits and owned a Patek Philippe watch. His idea of casual was a cashmere sweater. He found pleasure in entertaining and being with his family. Although if anyone were to ask my mother she would say his greatest excitement came from work and achievement. He cultivated a love of music- in particular dance, and a love of all things Italian and spoke it fluently. He also liked the spring and summer which for him meant swimming, fishing, baseball and his male bonding time included playing poker while drinking Hennessy Cognac. Although he was not the type to come to Las Vegas, he would have preferred Monte Carlo.

There was something in him that was young and fun. But all of that is now behind him. His entire future collapsed when he got ill and he was sick for a very long time.

After he died, I realized that I wish I would have spent more time with him — time, something I had all but taken for granted because I was young.

Time.

Why hadn’t I gone fishing with him more than a handful of times, and why didn’t I go to visit him more often? I always thought I would have plenty of time.

Even so, there was nowhere near enough time.

Time is suppose to blur the hurt but it can't blur memories. I remember him whenever I do something that is resourceful, or when I challenge the authorities and win or when my mind conjures up something creative and ingenious that hasn't been done before. At those times, I tell myself I am his daughter. When I watch my brother speak directly and firmly without raising his voice to get his message across and others acquiesce, I see my father. When I watch my one nephew determined to win his rowing race while others slump from exhaustion, I see my father. And when my younger nephew says something witty beyond his years and all the girls circle around him, I also see my father.

No I didn't have enough time with him, but his spirit lives on, within me and around me.

What about you, do you remember your Dad on Father's Day or throughout the year? Would you like to share a story?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y04seHfYLAA&list=PL99CC46FE7D8902F3

Monday, Monday

The story begins with a classic homespun adventure- I go to be with the person who gave me life on my birthday. Back home, we are in “Crown of the Valley” the language of the Chippewas, an Indian tribe that never set foot in the area, the land on which the city was built occupied originally by the Gabrielino Indians and then by the Spanish and the Mexicans who built adobes. As in most of Los Angeles County, the greatest amount of fine architecture is domestic, but the city of Pasadena is ahead of most of her neighbors in public architecture. Still it's where I was born in the Lower Arroyo Seco section favored by bicyclists, joggers and people who like to stroll because they have something to experience-lovely scenery and well-kept gardens. And there is the ostentatious simplicity of the Arts and Crafts movement. Craftsman style homes, bungalows that are brown and woodsy, many remain in pristine condition that were once and still are attractive to people of moderate means and often of intellectual and artistic pretension.

Inside a Mexican restaurant there are two strolling mariachis, one strumming his guitar the other shaking his maracas. The minstrels serenade listeners with buoyant Mexican folk songs. It is indeed another perfect autumn morning. The sun shining softly in a high blue sky dotted here and there with ragged wisps of cloud. The air clean and fresh, the birds are singing, and the hours spooled before us. We were poised at another stretch of time in which anything can happen. The musicians join us and sing “Las Mañanitas” the traditional Mexican birthday and Mother's Day song, often used to wake the guest of honor early in the morning as the lyrics are about waking up and celebrating the day you were born. My mother bursts into tears. I, unable to keep dry-eyed at another's tears and having shed tears of many varieties, follow.

I think about the lineage that brought us together, and about my Grandmother. How as a child, there seemed to be so much time, as she pointed out, that I wished my life away. In my heart, I knew there was more to a day than how many things I played with, but also, in my heart I didn't know what that something was.

Now that I am older, there never seems to be enough of it, provoked by a growing awareness of my own mortality. I remember her often, more so in October, two weeks before my birthday would have been hers, and the more things speed up, the more I try to track it. I suspect it comes from believing if only I control time, I will keep it. Ironically, the opposite is true.

Past, present, future. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. Paradoxically, the more I think about time, the less I can make sense of it. It eludes me. The same thing can be said about dreams, words, and love. All I know for certain is that the time my Grandmother was with me, I was living both inside and outside of time and beyond it. And this time that I have with my mother will be the same, she has always been and ever will be with me. As a daughter and as a woman, I am predisposed to eternity.