What is that snoring sound coming out of the library?

There is nothing more intense in life than the loss of someone that is dear to us. We spend years developing relationships with parents, our children, our spouses, other family members, and friends. At that moment in which life plays the ironic and mostly sad trick of taking one of these already emotionally attached individuals from our side, the walls seem to collapse around us and we find ourselves in complete failure to understand why it happened.

At the young age of 33 my father had his first heart attack. Life was just beginning for him in every sense of the word. Fortunately for him, a second chance was give and he survived the medical trauma that almost took his life in minutes. He had become a diabetic since the early age of 21, plus the fact that he was a smoker did not help to worsen his chances of becoming another statistic in the tally of middle aged men suffering from heart disease. The event was life changing. Once a man full of life, energy, and spunk, suddenly he found himself having to limit himself on almost all types of physical activities that until then basically came natural and effortlessly. You would think that this "wake up call" would of been enough to encourage him to stop smoking, pay much more attention to his diet, and become more assertive on his efforts to take care of his overall health. In a sense it did, for a while the impact of the moment took away the desire to smoke, but it was not much long after that he started again anyway.

Throughout his life my father made several attempts to stop smoking, but on every single one of them he eventually failed miserably. The same thing happened on his efforts to eat the right types of food that would not aggravate his diabetes. Eventually, even though he seemed to be stable, after three other heart attacks spaced out in a ten year span of time, the final stroke that took his life arrived at only 44 years of age. The experience was devastating for all of us that loved him. Even though we knew that he was far from being in perfect health, it never occurred to us that he would go away at such an early age.

I had been attending college at the Arecibo Regional College, which was a satellite branch of the University of Puerto Rico. My father in an effort to keep himself busy had also enrolled at the same university taking some computer programming classes. We were good with each other as father and son. Finding a good parking spot is always hard on campus, but because of his medical condition they had given him special parking privileges which worked out great when we would go to school together in the mornings. Day in and day out we would carpool and share stories on our way to college and back home about things that at the time seemed important to us. The man was amazingly intelligent and a social butterfly anywhere he arrived at. By the time I was already on my second year of college he had probably made at least twice the amount of friends that I had in less than a year. Everybody on campus knew the man, and many would come up to me and ask me all sorts of questions about him. I remember getting out of class and heading to the library to catch up with him so that we could head home. It was many times when I would find him asleep at some table snoring his not so healthy heart away. Funny thing is, I never thought of it being embarrassing because of how much everyone that surrounded him liked him.

Apparently he was much worse in health than his physical appearance would reveal. It was a Friday, and I was in the middle of my Chemistry mid-term exam, when a cousin of my mother that worked at the university walked down the steps of the auditorium in which I was taking my test and asked me to leave my paper there and head to the hospital because my father was very ill. I would like to say that I remember it as if it was yesterday, but in fact, the method of transportation in which I arrived to the hospital had eluded me until recently when another cousin told me that she had been the one to take me there. The fear in my heart was so intense that anything that happened between getting the news of his illness and arriving at the hospital was never recorded in my mind. I must of been thinking millions of terrible and scary thoughts, but for the life of me, I just cannot remember them. What I do remember is every single instant afterwards. Walking into the hospital that just hours earlier he had arrived into for a routine small wound cleaning because of his diabetes. The family doctor stepping out into the hall and giving my mother the news that he had not been able to save him. Watching my mother collapse on to the floor in agonizing heart breaking horror of the news she had just been given. Then realizing that only one of us could fall apart at a time and that I needed to be strong for her and not allow myself to feel that most dreadful emotion that is brought about the loss of someone that you love so much.

One of my sisters was out of state at the University of Detroit, the other one was out of town where she attended college. This intense moment of pain and despair was only compounded by the fact that I had to be strong and not let myself fall apart. I remember heading to the funeral home to pick the coffin that I was going to lay my father's body in to rest. What an unbearable process this making funeral arrangements can be to anyone that is already in the middle of such incredible sorrow. Eventually my older sister arrived and in the middle of her own emotional crisis found the strength to take over what I had already started. Thank you my sweet Jane and Queen of the Jungle.

Death is so final. Very few words are encompassing enough to reveal the true meaning of death. It is not until we approach what was once alive and find so very little of its original essence in front of us, that we actually are able to taste what is death. Before this experience I had been to other family funerals, but none had touched so deep into my soul as to rip out my own will to breath. It is a good thing that breathing is an autonomous body function, because I am sure that anyone of you that has had to experience the loss of someone that you loved this much would probably have very little left inside you after the event to make your own lungs take another breath of precious air.

Just hours earlier he had been joking around and teasing a group of us who had gathered at my home to study all night for our mid-term exam about our last minute diligence. Several times that night he walked out to check up on us, make sure we were doing OK. I for one had not even thought twice about his repeated appearances that night, which always brought some element of laughter into the room in which we were cramming. I've always wished I would of made a parenthesis that night to give him the usual hug we almost always shared before going to bed. In fact, it is from my parents that I have learned to be a loving father. Between all of the years that we have shared, there has never been a moment in which we could not find the time to express our love to each other one way or another. Sure we have been mad at each other, but being angry was never a reason to stop loving. Deep in our hearts no matter how much we would hurt for any temporary offense, love reigned high in our hearts, mind, and soul.

The pain was real, more real than any other emotion I had ever had to deal with in my life. We tried to make ourselves feel better by telling each other that even though he had only lived to be 44, he had lived a full life. These were words that only made sense if we could be able to accept his loss, and no matter how hard we tried to do this, his death made no sense at all. I have never been big about reaching into a coffin and touching a dead body. When I was a child I had attended a family member's funeral when somebody standing next to me while I prayed next to the coffin, reached in screaming, grabbed the body and started to scream that she was alive. In the commotion I was tangled into the event and to this day I can still feel the cold skin of the corpse unwillingly touching me and seriously freaking me out. This was different, this was my father, my dad, my old man. That day, as I said goodbye to him in between tears and prayers, I reached in and kissed my father's lips to remind myself that no man was greater than the man that raised me.

The hollow echo of his body reaching the bottom of his grave will never leave my mind. The emptiness left by his absence will never be filled again by anyone else. Twenty eight years have gone by and to this day I still cry, just as I do right now at the thought of having lost someone so important to me in my life. As I grew up I have missed him immensely and have wished that he still be part of my life. When someone tells me that he is here in spirit, that he is always with me, I not only believe their words of consolation, I actually am able to feel his presence all around me. Just as I feel the presence of many other family members that were extremely dear to me and have already passed away. It is not a ghostly kind of presence, it is a love all around me kind of effect. I profess to all of you that everything in life is temporary except for one thing...love. True love is the essence of what makes life worth while living. This is why I strongly believe that
life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.

Dad