My father has shared some terrific stories with us. When I was a kid, I thought that the stories were a mixture of sadness and humor and many made me ache. As an adult, I find them to mostly be stories of resilience and part of the reason my father developed such tensile strength.
Dad grew up in San German, Puerto Rico. If you've been there, you know that it is an incredibly hilly, small town. As a pedestrian, you find yourself holding on to railings that have been added to the exterior walls of some of the buildings. The roads and sidewalks are that steep. You find yourself wanting to hold on. It's a colorful town...like you might imagine a town in the Caribbean. The walls of the buildings can be blue, yellow or even orange. The streets are cobblestone and there's a town square. That town you have imagined, so charming and bright, is this town.
Dad tells the story of when, as a little boy, he received his first real leather basketball. You can imagine the excitement. The smell of the leather, the feel of those black lines encircling the orange orb with those small bumps. I can imagine Dad with his striped shirt and black hair enjoying the feel of that prize in his hands. He went outside and dribbled - probably imagining himself in a PR league game, the crowd chanting his name. He shoots...he misses. The ball goes over the wall and the ball's fate is unknown. Dad scrambles and there, there lies the catastrophic outcome - his beloved basketball stuck on a board with a lone nail piercing its orange skin.
My father fondly recalls stories of his parents' ice cream parlor. Dad prides himself on working there and his skill of being able to serve up 2 cones of ice cream at one time. I believe it was a soft serve machine and he would hold a cone in each hand while perfectly swirling the ice cream on each cone. He was an artist in his element. Growing up, I can remember Dad's love of chocolate ice cream. Ice cream is a food group. He recalls his mom's cupcakes and I remember hearing Dad's friends , during various visits to PR, confirming that they were the best cupcakes they've ever had. The name of the store was the Dairy Delite and you can still see the storefront if you know where to look.
Dad was more of a city boy -well, I suppose, small town boy would be more appropriate. His parents bought him a little chick once. The city boy with a chick. He loved it and played with it, but the chick ran around a lot and so did Dad and Dad accidentally stepped on it. I think this is one of the reasons that Dad does not eat chicken.
One Christmas morning, Dad woke up to find his gifts under the tree. Dad was an only child. His mother had experienced several miscarriages, so Little Pedro was her pride and joy. She loved him dearly, but had a watchful eye and probably controlled and protected him too much. As a mother, I realize that there is some justification to this after so much loss. How you recover from "losing" your babies, I do not know. So, here is Pedro, beloved only son on Christmas. Dad said he had wanted a toy motorcycle to play with. That morning, his dream had come true. He opened the box that contained that toy motorcycle and the handle bar was broken.
Dad is the type of guy that unites people. He has kept his grade school friends. He checks in on them to this day. Once, when Dad was just a boy, one of his friends had humiliated him - maybe even clocked him, I'm not sure. When my Dad got home and shared the story, Abuelo (my father's father) promptly took Dad over to his friend's house. When his friend opened the door, Abuelo forced Dad to throw a punch because that's what men do. This friendship, however, remained lifelong and loyal. Dad tells that story with a laugh and a wince.
Dad's father had an interesting past (my Abuelo). My Abuelo was one of MANY children born out of wedlock. His own father, my great grandfather, was a dentist. Abuelo happened to be his father's favorite out-of-wedlock child so, when he and his siblings needed shoes (because his mother could not afford them or much of anything else) Abuelo's mother sent him to ask for shoes from his father. Abuelo was fortunate enough to hang out with his father in his dentistry practice. He spent enough time there to pick up some skills and make a bit of a name for himself. Abuelo's dad had dentistry practices in 2 different towns on the island. When he was away at the other practice, Abuelo would occasionally open the local practice and perform dental procedures. Remember, he was not a dentist and he was young. At my Abuelo's funeral, someone showed me a cavity Abuelo had filled. Abuelo the "dentist" was also the guy that did a "Mexican hat dance" on someone's hat in a bar. Of course, he really didn't know the dance but, he did know how to stomp on things, including the hat. The gig was up when the hat owner grabbed his machete and scraped it on the floor causing it to spark. The line in the sand had been drawn. Needless to say, Abuelo spent the next day driving all over the island in search of a similar hat. Abuelo grew up without. As an older man, I think he demanded respect. He was well-put-together, he smelled nice, shiny shoes, he got under his cars (and he had many throughout his adult life...many) with a toothbrush to clean the underside. This paints the picture for you.
My father is an accomplished man. You wouldn't know it had you seen him in grade school. My grandmother, mentioned earlier, doted on him. My understanding was that as much as she loved him, she was overbearing and Dad learned that he needed her in sight. When Dad went to school, he had some trouble. Whenever a teacher would call his name, he would get really nervous and start dry-heaving and even vomit. Pedro? Puke. Here's your paper, Pedro. Puke. Pedro, what's 2+2? Puke. It was an issue. My grandmother found a way to fix this. She would sit outside the school building where my Dad could see her through a window. There she sat throughout the school day. My Abuela died when Dad was 19. I can't bear to think of the funeral pictures. The look on my father's face...I can't write about it. Dad ended up being top of his high school class, a physician, and an Air Force General - and motherless.
My Dad was a Pediatrician. I'm not sure why he chose this specialty. I think it has to do with his upbringing. Actually, I do think I know why. My father started a very comprehensive interventional program in the military to prevent child abuse. I suppose that as a pediatrician, dad saw his share of child abuse. I remember (and this was before the privacy act) dad poring over slides of his young, beaten patients: cigarette burns, irons placed in just the right spots where no one would know, bruises, even a punch to the eye that when you shone a light in that eye, you could see the imprint of the ring worn on the fist that delivered the blow. I sat with him at times looking and wondering how and why and just not grasping the reality. I think that dad became a pediatrician to protect those kids. In today's terms, I would say that dad "got the shit beaten out of him" physically and emotionally when he was a boy. Abuelo, while kind, funny, and generous to my siblings and me, I think he gave my Dad what he knew how to give - pain, suffering, strength, fear, sadness. I think Abuelo just didn't know how to love or, he loved but, HIS love wasn't necessarily something you'd hope for. My Dad was intimidating in my youth. We knew boundaries, we'd get spanked , we'd get "the look' - but we never were "beaten". We never experienced that. Somehow, some way, Dad broke a cycle. When my father told Abuelo he was going to be a Pediatrician, Abuelo asked him why he wasn't going to be a Surgeon. I'm certain Dad saved many kids from life threatening illnesses and from their own parents.
Dad was really passionate about his work. He worked to save kids - all the kids that walked into the clinic were his kids. Once, a family decided not get treatment for their dying child. I believe they sighted religious reasons and they had decided to pray. Dad suffered with this one and I bet that family did too, but, they had a lot more faith in God than in science. Dad was devastated and he banged his fist on the desk and banged his fist some more trying to make sense of their decision. Eventually, the parents began to wipe their faces. Dr. Dad stopped and realized they were wiping his blood off of their faces. He tore the skin on his hand and ended up with a fracture. When Dad returned home with a cast, our crazy cocker spaniel jumped up and bit Dad's arm. It may not have been right what Dad did, I don't know. How do you judge this? Consider the internal torment. Not saving one was like not saving any. It wasn't an ego thing, it was a deep sadness.
Years ago, my Dad had a coronary bypass graft surgery on the military base where he and mom were stationed. The General was in for surgery! Yikes. During bypass surgery, staff will visit the waiting area to inform anxious family members about how the procedure is going. At one point they tell you that, well, the heart is being bypassed and machinery is keeping him alive. Dear God, science is amazing but, no one really wants to hear that. In any case, he had a successful procedure. While recovering in the hospital, he had to have an injection. The nurse walks in with the syringe ready to inject Dad's gluteal muscle. Nope. Remember, Dad is modest and Puerto Rican macho (at the time) all rolled into one. He grabbed the syringe and plunged it into his own ass - never mind that every nurse and doctor had probably already seen him in "all of his glory" while unconscious. I love that story. I won't mention the part about how upon returning home and not too long after surgery, he decided to bench press. I'm not sure what the big cracking sound in his chest was but, he did show some common sense by putting down the weights.
I don't know - some of these stories evoke laughter on some days and tears the next. Stories of a man that has never stopped trying or laughing or giving. Really, things could've gone badly. I mean, where does someone find hope when you're not good enough for your own father? How do you recover from the sadness, the sense of failure? Who are these people that decide not to give up? How do you reassess and change your reality? My Dad has worked hard to become the person he is. He is passionate about things, including being a better person and discovering who he really is. Now, Dad doesn't wear a watch, he doesn't care what time it is. He has taken up croquet, learned how to play the accordion in his 60's, he talks and talks about feelings - the talking part is not new, the feelings part is. Dad has always been playful and even more so now. When my boys say, "I love Grandpa so much" out of the blue , there just isn't a better feeling. I know this feeling so well. It's like a tidal wave of joy, it almost knocks me down.
I'm so glad Dad never gave up and that mom never did either. She's another story for another day.
There Goes My Hero
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