A few days ago, my mom came into town for a visit. While she was here, my dad came up in conversation. As always, my mom’s face lit up as she spoke of him. As always, it ended with a hilarious quote of something my dad once said, and a deep belly laugh from both of us.
Once my mom finished her story, I noticed tears in her eyes. After a silent moment, she very somberly said, “You know, I still miss him.” With that, I spent a moment trying to put myself in her place. I thought about how difficult it must have been to have loved my dad for 16 years, then to one day find herself without the love of her life by her side. I recalled how she spent the following years doing her best to keep the pieces of our family together. With that, my eyes also welled up with tears.
It has been 34 years since the tragic loss of my dad. He passed away at the age of 40, leaving my mom a widow at the young age of 33. She was a working single mother, left on her own to care for me, an exuberant 5-year-old, along with my 12-year-old sister, who was struggling with the devastation of losing the most important man in her life.
While I don’t specifically remember very much of our time together, I do recognize the significant impact my dad has made on my life. As a certified officiant and a self-proclaimed motivational speaker, I believe that he would have sincerely appreciated this opportunity to share his wisdom, as seen through the eyes of his youngest daughter. I hope that sharing his story might provide guidance to someone out there who needs it. I am certain that he would have wanted it this way.
I am fortunate to have inherited my dad’s two strongest qualities, ingenuity and persistence, two qualities which I hope to someday master as skillfully as he did. My father was also known for his legendary sense humor, something which has found its way into my world through stories and family conversation. My dad’s kindhearted wisdom was represented in the proverbial quotes handed down by his grandfather, something which he enjoyed sharing with anyone who wanted to listen. His belief in the strength of family and community was evident in everything he did. As more than three decades have come and gone since his passing, his influence has not been diluted by time.
The difficult circumstances of my father’s life and death provided me with five important lessons which have guided me through the years. Regardless of whether I am the result of my dad’s influence, his heredity, or his circumstances, I sincerely believe that he is a huge part of the person I have become today.
1. Nothing is impossible when you are motivated.
With nothing more than a basic elementary school education and the ambitions of an entrepreneur, my dad was regarded as highly intelligent by anyone who knew him. He was a fascinating man who, at any given moment, was crafting at least five big ideas in his mind. He was self-motivated businessman with a gift for words. Regardless of whether he was talking business or sharing personal life experiences, he imparted his wisdom passionately and eloquently.
My dad was a charismatic visionary with an aptitude for persuasion. He wholeheartedly believed that big financial opportunities were always just one innovation away. Always on a mission to make new friends with specialized skills, he aspired to motivate the most brilliant people to work hard and dream big. With his talent for drawing crowds and marketing to the masses, he believed that he possessed the skills necessary to turn anyone’s great idea into a big money. In his perspective, the more ideas he explored, the better his chances for success.
As a natural born leader, my father understood that the most important achievements always began with inspiration. He recognized that every person had talent, and that the key to success was as simple as motivation and encouragement.
2. If you are not laughing, you are not living
When it came to my dad, laughter awoke at sunrise and it rarely stopped to catch its breath until the day was done. It was a powerfully versatile tool which allowed him to attract, deflect, and captivate any audience. As my mom also reminds me, laughter was also how he was able to win over her heart.
A charming sense of humor, coupled with a talent for business, was what made my dad a superior salesman. He effortlessly drew in customers with his outrageously funny sales pitches, always keeping his customers coming back for more.
His favorite sales pitch was, “¡Vengan a comprar naranjas! ¡Son buenas para anticoncepción!” [Come buy oranges! They make great contraception!] With further explanation, he would hold the orange in his hand and go on to explain that it would taste so satisfying that it eliminated the need for sex, thus, excellent contraception.
There is also the story of St Nicholas Day where my dad, in an effort to amuse himself, placed his shoes outside the front door before bed. Expecting to wake up to his precious gifts from Saint Nicholas the following morning, he instead opened the door to find that both of his shoes had been stolen. As with my dad in any situation, there was laughter.
My mom still remembers how dad would wake up, look in the mirror, and say, “Ay dios mio! Porque me hiciste tan bello? Porque no me hiciste rico en vez de guapo?” [God, why did you have to make me so good looking? Why couldn’t you have made me rich instead?] Even while entertaining his own reflection in the bathroom mirror, my dad was proof that laughter always made life more exciting.
Thanks to countless memories of my dad, I recognize that laughter is powerful. Laughter brings people together. Laughter makes life more interesting. Laughter has no limit. Laughing is living.
3. Tragedy leads to adaptation. It’s not all bad.
The interesting thing about tragedy is that it’s only difficult until we learn to adapt to our new situation. After that, it’s no longer a devastating topic; it’s just reality. Tragedy can change who we are, often for the better. Tragic situations can provide opportunities to become stronger, wiser, more capable people.
I was about six years old when I first taught myself to cook. Determined to make beautiful, one-of-a-kind, dresses for my Barbie dolls, I cut up my old clothes and taught myself to hand-stitch fabric by the time I was seven. By age eight, I had taken over most of the “man of the house” duties, independently learning to work a lawn mower and make basic home repairs. By age nine, I could jerry-rig almost anything around the house. By age 10, I was self-taught in basic electrical repair. It only took electrocuting myself once to realize that it was a bad idea to strip a live wire with my teeth. By high school, I knew my way around a toolbox and had my own personal prized collection of power tools.
My dad was a knowledgeable, self-educated, father of two. He was a self-motivated man who knew his way around a kitchen and a toolbox. In addition to working, he cooked, cleaned, and changed diapers. As the oldest of 8 children, having tragically lost two of his brothers and his father before his own passing, he took it upon himself to care for his family, above anything else.
I am a college-educated mother who knows her way around a kitchen, a sewing machine, a lawn mower, and power tools. I take pride in being self-taught, and I try my best to be independent, self-sufficient, and knowledgeable. Having tragically lost my father at a very young age has taught me that being a parent is the single most important job that I will ever have in this world. I love my son, above anything else.
With tragedy comes harsh reality. What we don’t always recognize though, is that there is also a beautiful truth concealed within it. We experience. We grow. We adapt. The hidden truth about tragedy is that it’s not all bad.
4. Life is short. Make memories.
I have spent the last 25 years on a quest for photographs of my dad. Fortunate to have located more than 50 photos to date, I believe I have successfully captured his essence through a beautiful assortment of images. My collection includes: family photos, classic car photos, wedding photos, dinner photos, silly-faced photos, kissing photos, “Sunday best” photos, working photos, and quite a few photos of my dad smiling alongside my sister; perfectly representing the proud family man that my father was.
When I first began my photo quest, my goal was to compile an amazing album filled with pictures of me with my dad. After meticulously searching through hundreds of albums and thousands of photographs, my father/daughter keepsake photo collection could instead be summed up as one single photograph, where my dad and I casually stood in our front yard, both dressed in our “around the house” clothes. After searching through every single family album, I have only ever come upon this one single photo of myself with my dad.
Earlier this year, figuring that my son might someday appreciate a collection of our family photos, I decided to put together a collection of photos of myself with my son. As I searched through hundreds and hundreds of photos on my digital camera roll, I noticed that my son’s entire first seven years of life with me were summed up in just a small handful of digital photographs.
Riddled with emotion, I wondered how I could have overlooked something so important to my son’s future. As I soul-searched, I found myself starting to line up a number of excuses: I was always working, I didn’t always have time to be “camera ready”; there was no one to take photos of us; I rarely had time to put on makeup; I’m not photogenic; I’ll take more photographs after I start working out more. Finally, after getting tired of hearing my own list of selfish excuses, I realized that I had wasted the first 7 years of my son’s life avoiding the camera, valuing a need for “perfect” pictures above my son’s need for family memories.
Wondering if there were any other family keepsakes available for my son, I started to rummage through my old storage boxes. My search yielded 2 half-completed baby albums, an almost blank pregnancy journal, 3 empty scrapbooks, and an envelope of undelivered birth announcements. My intentions were good, but my efforts to put food on the table and a roof over our heads meant that work and the chaos of life had taken priority over precious keepsakes for my son’s entire life.
Full of disappointment, I saw an opportunity to take the “one single photo” lesson that my dad had bestowed upon me as an inspiration to do more for his grandson. Thanks to my dad, I began to commit a serious effort to building a family “trail of breadcrumbs” for my son. I have recently begun to build a collection of family experiences, family recipes, and family photos. From now on, there will be a collection of mother/son messy-haired photos, silly-faced photos, pajama photos, dinner photos, and “just because” photos. I will take more pictures alongside my son, no matter how messy I look, because life is short, and I know my dad would have wanted it that way.
5. I am human. I am not invincible.
My dad was a sentimental man who spent his life working, laughing, living, and loving. There is perhaps one more important thing to note about my dad – he also made mistakes.
With the weight of the world on his shoulders, my dad often used laughter to ease pain. Armed with great dignity and the patience of a saint, my dad faced difficult situations with an invisible suit of armor and a smile on his face.
The most difficult memory I still recall with my dad was a devastating car accident in Mexico, several months before his passing. After my dad lost control of his truck, I flew through the passenger window, then wandered along the dusty rural road until discovered by a passing car. After the accident, my mom received a call that my dad had gone missing. Two mysterious days following his disappearance, my dad found his way back to my grandparents’ house, made a long-distance phone call to my mom, and explained that he had gained consciousness in a morgue.
It wasn’t long after kissing death on the lips, that my dad was back to laughing and storytelling, with his humorous account of “that time when he woke up in the morgue.” Serious about humor, lighthearted about death, my dad joked, “hierba mala nunca muere” [bad weeds never die].
My dad possessed a phenomenal ability to make people happy. What he lacked was an ability to focus on himself and his own needs. Stubborn to a fault, my dad spent his last few years silently battling a demon which he refused to acknowledge. Unwilling to burden his family, my dad continually deflected the very serious topic of his health with humor and avoidance.
Despite every frantic family effort, my dad’s illness continually progressed. Our family had no choice but to watch him struggle in solitude. As indicated by his yellow eyes and yellow skin, it was painfully obvious that my dad would not overcome his demon.
The most important lesson I ever learned from my dad was the one which he never chose to accept. – I am human. I make mistakes. I have a choice to learn from my mistakes. I am not invincible.
My dad, born March 18, 1943, succumbed to being human on August 4, 1983. He was a passionate motivator, philosopher, and businessman. He brought laughter, wisdom, and inspiration to his entire community. While the circumstances of his passing were complicated, his life experiences cultivated inspiration and guidance, lasting more than 3 decades. I am proud to be his daughter, and hope to carry on his legacy for decades to come.
