Finding my father’s tears

After tia Chila’s funeral, my dad, Monico III, my tia Diana, my younger cousin Valerie, and I visited the shared grave of my grandfather, Monico II, and his tia Rita. Despite the somber occasion, it felt good to have the four of us together again, like back when tia Diana-still living in Laredo-and my dad-visiting on military leave-would baby-sit me and Valerie. With the death of tia Chila, who had in her life made a deep impact on us all, we were all experiencing a need to be together, a need to feel closer to our ancestors, a need to revive the memories of the dead, possibly in the desperate hope that when our time comes, we will not be forgotten by future generations of our family. “How come they were buried together?” Valerie asked, her brown eyes looking up at my dad. He shrugged. “They were really close, I guess.””Super close. I remember,” tia Diana agreed, nodding. I inspected the names and dates on the bronze grave marker.Who are these people-my people?My dad had never really spoken to me about these relatives whom I had not met, and I had never bothered to ask. “So how did grandpa Monico take it when tia Rita died?” I asked offhandedly.My dad ran his left hand back and forth across the top of his head. After a moment of silence, he cleared his throat.”My father was a good father, but…we didn’t really get to see him a lot. He was always away, working,” my dad said. I met his gaze for a second before he quickly looked away.”My tia abuela had always been really sick,” he went on slowly, “so I had an idea that something was wrong. But I was still too young to know exactly what had happened when she died.”Transfixed by the enigma unfolding before us, we huddled into a semi-circle around my dad, bridging the generational gap. “I knew it was something serious, because my dad had come home-“His voice cracked, and a tear escaped from under his dark sunglasses. With wet, red-rimmed eyes, tia Diana whimpered and hugged him from behind as he sharply sucked in his breath and huffed out a deep sigh. Valerie wiped her eyes. I followed the motion of her hand and noticed her glistening cheeks and quivering bottom lip.”And,” he continued, almost whispering, “he was standing outside in our backyard under a tree, and grandma Lola was holding him. Kind of like tia Diana is holding me now. I was so happy to see him-I ran to him, but my mom put her hand out and said, ‘Deja a tu papa.’ And I realized my dad was crying.”Earlier, at tia Chila’s wake, my dad, watching me cry, leaned into my ear and whispered, “Wait until its me in there.” With a tissue clenched in my fist, I lightly punched his knee and shook my head. I turned to face him, but he was already looking forward again, grinning-totally obnoxious, totally my father. But here in the cemetery, that single tear transformed my perception of my father, just as I imagined his father’s tears had changed him. Each word he said brought me closer to this stranger, this man hiding behind small talk and big jokes. My dad had reached back into the past as far as he could and recreated it for us. I felt honored that he would share himself with me and blessed to have this opportunity. More than anything, I wanted to preserve this extraordinary moment to one day share with my own children so that tia Rita and grandpa Monico and my father and I would have a place in their hearts-they would know whom their people were.