The gift that keeps on giving

The gift that keeps on giving.

Do you ever wish you could relive those childhood Christmas moments?  The “eyes of a child” quote comes up a lot this time of year doesn’t it?  Well you can, and it’s pretty cool.  I’m not just talking about buying toys and sitting on the ground playing with your kids.  I mean, getting caught up in the wonder and miracles of hope and faith.  When my father passed away I delivered is eulogy. Our family Priest got us started.  He spoke about the three greatest virtues in the Church being faith, hope, and charity.  I have experienced all three over the last five months with an extra helping this Christmas season. It has been nothing short of magical.  And miracles do happen if you know where to look.

Some of you may remember I wrote a little story about my father’s last day with me.  We went to the A&M vs. Michigan baseball game on March 11, 1996.  He died that night in my mother’s arms.  I was able to tell him I loved him and get some advice from him.  Now looking from the other side of this equation, I am very aware of how I express my love and spend my time with my family.  I still have to discipline and teach the kids, but always follow with a hug and a kiss.  I sometimes even second guess if I was over the top (chemo-pissed off is not quite roid-rage, but you do have to fight through it to get to your best, it isn’t just sitting there like a fluffy bunny).  I think maybe telling you a little about my father might tell you more about me (listen up kids, this is the story of your Abuelito).

My dad was born in 1935 in Corpus Christi, TX.  He was the son of a fourth generation Texan (Texican). His father was worthless and did not participate which his brother took as guidance.  My father was smart and strong and knew right from wrong, he went the good way.  Out of necessity he was in a gang on Agnes Street and quickly realized if he stuck with it he’d be dead or in prison.  He was in the gang because that is what you did if you wanted to survive at all. They were poor because his mother was a woman so the family land hand-me-downs went to the sons and not to her. She was given a small one bedroom house which was more than most had.  At 16 he joined the Navy.  About one month before he turned 17, they figured it out and discharged him.   A little over a month later he joined the Air Force and was shipped to Japan to fix airplanes during the Korean War. He sent his mother 50% of his paycheck.  She didn’t spend a dime of it, so when he came home she handed him a jar with all his money.  He used the money to build another bedroom onto her home making it a two-bedroom house. With the money left over he bought a used car. Momma first.   After he came back to Corpus he fell in love with my mother and used the GI bill to get his degree from Texas A&M Kingsville (A&I at the time).  He later told me that when he came home all his old “running buddies” were either dead or in prison. He suffered through racism and bigotry but didn’t let it get him down.  Instead he used science and math as his entry into mainstream society due to their lack of subjectivity (at the time).  He taught math in a Corpus high school and was an assistant football coach.  He ran into an old neighborhood guy and told him he was working at the school.  The guy said, “Orale, you’re a janitor esse, you got it made guay.” My father did not correct him, he just thanked him and wished him well.  Humility. After a brief teaching and football coach/scouting career he became a computer programmer…back when they were still using punch cards. He moved to Washington D.C., worked for the IRS and helped write the system that was in place until the mid-80s.  He was the recruited by the Department of Veterans Affairs to run their computer division in Austin.  This will date us, back when storage was reel to reel he purchased 2 TB of storage for over one million dollars. He had planned to retire the year he died and was studying to be a docent for the Lady Bird wildflower center.  We always had a vegetable garden and it kept him (and us) grounded and centered.

Growing up, dad was a huge sports fan.  I remember tagging along to countless football, baseball, and basketball state championship and playoff games that my dad and his friends would attend.  Dad would even pull me out of school for some of them.  Being in Austin, most were played here, but we’d still drive to Houston, Dallas, or San Antonio with his buddies for those that weren’t.  Dad played tennis twice a week for decades and during company picnics it was obvious he was a good athlete.  I played year-round sports and dad coached almost all of my teams in some capacity.  He was very much a “rub some dirt on it” kind of guy rather than “are you okay, let me give you a hug.” 

Dad’s gardens allowed me to become country strong.  We had a few acres in Manchaca which had nice rich soil.  Although there were very few neighbors, those we had mostly had tractors so it was easy for them to come and till a few rows for us, and then my job was to pick up rocks.  It was my punishment at times but also an opportunity to earn spending money. There were always rocks to pick up and haul to the rock pile.  I must have hauled several thousand wheelbarrows full of rocks across our property.  We also didn’t have a trash service, so we burned the trash and crushed our cans.  When we cleared trees, we hauled them to the “burning pile.”  I figured big branches required fewer trips so I’d haul the largest pieces I could handle. When I got to high school and tried out for the freshman football team they asked me how much I benched.  I had never lifted weights before and was laughed at.  I was moved from the “weak” group to the strong group on the first day.  I guess lifting tractors, trees, and hauling rocks were kind of a work out after all.

Dad was very competitive.  He played in a lot of tennis tournaments, and every year during his company tournament he’d ask me to be his partner.  For years we played doubles in these events and we never placed.  I was too impatient, always looking for the big serve, etc. His peers would just wait us out until I would make a mistake.  Dad never won another trophy as my partner but said his favorite times were playing in these tournaments with me.  I get it now.  He was also a wonderful guitar player.  He used to sing and play with his friends when we had parties and fish fries. He loved to BBQ and cook outside; he used me as a gopher, baster, and mixer and at the time I didn’t realize he was actually teaching me to BBQ and work a grill.  He tried to teach me a little guitar and like a dumb ass kid I rejected him and only picked up a little.  One of my biggest regrets was not learning guitar.  Dad gave me more gifts than I can count and they routinely come flooding back to me.  His little sayings, sage advice, competitive attitude, stubbornness, grit, toughness, huge heart, faith, and his embracing of our responsibility for charity. 

When he died and we were cleaning out his things, we found his junk drawer.  In it there were hundreds of raffle tickets, BBQ day passes, etc.  Any and every friend who asked him to buy something to support any cause was met with a willing purchaser.  He never won anything, never cared.  He gave what he could and supported his friends and community.  It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns, we had our moments…but he was a great man and I strive to be more like him.  He had a saying that I can never escape, “Excellence is a state of becoming, never a state of being.”  There is always more in the tank, if you reach for it.

The peer pressure of my group has forced me to occasionally wear a mask out in public or in a gathering where I know there will be a lot of kids.  The white blood cell boost helps, but the tradeoff is the temporary hobbled walking at times. I can gut through it when the kids are around so they don’t have to worry. Another funny and counterintuitive side effect is the relationship between smell and taste. My sense of taste especially for salt is greatly reduced but my sense of smell is heightened. So I can smell things that Nita and the kids don’t notice.  Odors and aromas are much stronger/pungent to me now.  Sometimes it affects the nausea if left unattended.  In the grand scheme of things, I am lucky.  My chemo is working, my wife and kids are healthy, and I am surrounded by an amazing support group.  That leaves time for me to notice things.  As poignantly stated by Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop to look around once in a while, you could miss it.”  Speaking of movies a friend puts on a children’s production each year.  This year was the Grinch that stole Christmas, almost.  While there, my best friend Omar’s father in law and I spoke for a while about living in the moment.  We talked about the real tragedy is that it actually takes a tragedy for some folks to realize what they have been missing all along.  So of course Scrooged/Dickens came up.  The moral of course is that what if the ghosts had never visited Ebenezer Scrooge?  Would he have ever enjoyed anything around him?  Well of course the second and third ghost tell us he wouldn’t.  But they did come and he did learn. So, apropos for this season don’t you think?  Let me be your ghost.  Don’t miss another minute if you don’t have to.  

I bought a guitar this Christmas.  I was watching a documentary on the group Daft Punk and something just clicked in my mind.  Nita is a musician and we have instruments all over the house.  She even bought me a classical guitar a few years ago.  I started on it but quit when I broke a string and never got around to having it fixed.  I had a vision of the family Christmas where everyone plays an instrument and we sing a few carols, very Norman Rockwell.  We still sing around the piano, but I didn’t keep my part of the bargain.  Now what exactly am I waiting for?  So I treated myself to a cheap little starter electric with a small amp.  I have a lot of friends who have played in bands and I’m sure I can lure one or two of them to remind me how to strum a few cords so I can be serviceable around the house.  Back to the Daft Punk show.  I turned off the Dallas vs. NY Jets game and invited Nita to watch it with me again.  She gave me a compliment that was pretty neat.  She said, “You know lately you’ve been paying more attention to the arts…actually, just paying more attention and I like this more attentive you.”

I guess that is the secret: paying more attention.  Now I try to be present, involved, aware, and not merely around.  This goes for work, family time, dinnertime, wrestling, story time, and playtime with the kids.  We are back to doing puppet shows, sing-a-longs, other creative things, and general tomfoolery. It’s kind of like being a kid again.  I wish someone would have let me know how I really should have been living…oh yea, someone did.  It was my dad and he showed me every day.

Merry Christmas!