Tears in Heaven...

I was going to dedicate this blog to Willie Perdomo, a poet that I love, but in an effort to keep it real I am going to write about my dad. Its hard to write about something that you aren't feeling- and right now I am missing my dad. The picture above is a very Seventies picture of my Dad and my Tio when they were younger. Check out my dad's fro'- it got bigger as the 70s went on.

My dad died in October, yet it seems like one day he is going to call me and say he is on his way from work. Maybe he had a hard day. Maybe the mud blew up and he was short guys, so the slab didn't come out to his liking (he was a cement mason for those of you who have no idea what it means to have the concrete blow up). I miss him every day but today was especially hard. Who knows why? Some days are just harder than others. I wanted to punch the lady who told me to take it one day at a time! But I know what she meant. There are days that I feel like I couldn't be any happier. And then there are days when I wish that God would strike me and allow me to follow to where my Dad is. I wish I could tell him that I would have taken care of him when he got old. I would have climbed any mountain if it would have helped. I would have rather taken his place. But I know that would have broken his heart- like mine feels now. In the beginning, I didn't have the time to cry and mourn. There was too much to do. Too many people coming over, too many arrangements to make, and too many people who were having a hard time. Which is probably why it is coming out now- (sorry to all of you who are reading my blog today).

Some days I spend all of my energy just stifling a scream of anguish because all I can see is my father on the floor of his room without a breath of life in him. I hate that image- so I push it out of my head and remember the funny things he said and did, the music we would talk about and the movies that he could never watch all of because he would start falling asleep as soon as it started. I miss so many things about my dad. But I especially miss being able to hear his voice. In honor of my Dad and my love of lists- I have made a list of things that I really miss about him.

1. I miss asking him what he is doing when it was obvious that he was sleeping.
2. I miss him waking my sister and I up when he went to work at ungodly hours like 4 in the morning.
3. I miss him singing "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fidler on the Roof.
4. I miss his LOUD snoring- that let me know he was resting.
5. I miss planning what we were going to do when we won the lotto with him.
6. I miss his stories that I never understood because he started in the middle of them and not at the beginning.
7. I miss his crazy laugh- especially when you tickled him.
8. I miss listening to Breakfast with the Beatles with him.
9. I miss making him go to the swap meet with me.
10. I miss his lectures about the waste of going to see stupid movies.
11. I miss his "serious" voice when we got in trouble.
12. I miss backtracking with him.
13. I will always miss holidays with him
14. I miss his boring work stories.
15. I miss play-fighting with him (there is no one stronger than my dad was).
16. I miss him just listening to me.
17. I miss the smell of dry concrete that he carried with him when he got off of work.
18. I miss eating "juicies" with him.
19. I miss his jokes that never had a punchline.
20. I miss his musical knowledge.

But most of all- I miss my dad because there will never be anyone who can take his place. He was one of a kind. My dad tried really hard. He thought about everyone else before he thought of himself. He broke his back everyday so that my sister and I could have a good life. He broke his back everyday because he had pride in all that he did and he gave it his all.