The world through his eyes...

Different cultures celebrate different holidays in many different ways. If you ever have the opportunity to experience Christmas time in Puerto Rico, don't hesitate in doing so. Our culture is full of traditions that range from culinary delights that are only enjoyed during these festive days, to music and parties that lighten the heart of just about anyone involved. We need no excuse to have a good time during any time of the year, but during Christmas we have learned to drag it out as long as possible. I hear that things have changed significantly since I used to live in my dear Borinquen 28 years ago, but this has happened all over the world too. My heart tells me that the changes might of tamed the amount of celebrations, but not their wonderful flavor. During the days I lived on the island, Christmas celebrations began during the second week of December and ended eight days after Three Kings Day on the 14th of January. I can only speak from my own experience, but in my culture as in many others, Christmas is a great season to spend time with family, loved ones, and friends. There is something about hanging around together to share the holidays that makes you want to be closer than ever.


Two years ago the part of my family that lives in Puerto Rico planned to spend the holidays at my sister's place in Texas. It had been a long time since I spent this festive time of year with my mom, brother, and sisters, so I decided that this was a great opportunity to make it happen. As soon as I told my two boys that I wanted to spend this time with them and the rest of my family, they eagerly rallied in favor of the trip. Airfare from California to Texas is very reasonable, but in my mind I had images of my boys and I making the trip by car in order to spend more time bonding. You might think this would of been a terrible choice given the distance to travel was in excess of 1,400 miles, and the passengers were a mix of ages including 12, 15, and 45 years old. However, just as I thought, somehow we managed to keep it fun, civilized, and all three of us had a great time getting to my sister's place in two days.

The first thing we realized after we had been on the road for less than an hour was that we had forgotten to bring the camera. What kind of trip would it be if we did not have images to document our adventure? We immediately entered "Costco" into our GPS Navigator search and found one just within a few miles from where we were at. It took us less than thirty minutes to detour and buy a digital camera and off we went heading east bound on Interstate 10. We all voted and selected my oldest son as the official trip photographer, a title he gladly accepted just to have the chance to play with the new purchased toy. One of the first things that I discovered was that this young man took his job seriously. We probably have over 300 photographs from cactus, to sunsets, to road signs, and even some of the restroom facilities we stopped on the way. Nothing was exempt from his sharp eyes and afterwards the results were astonishing. At first, while we drove for endless hours I noticed how tireless he was in the quest to find interesting and beautiful things to photographs. However, it was not until I finally downloaded the images on to my computer that I realized the extent of his talent. Somehow he managed to bring life to some of the most basic artifacts that he photographed. The angles, the composition, and the use of light and shadows was what I would describe as intense. He had brought with him his Ibanez Gem electric guitar and at some point took a picture of it that made me wonder why it was that he was able to not only see it in the perspective in which he took the picture, but also reveal it to the rest of us.

What could of been a stressful time of driving long hours with two teenagers in my car turned out to be the best time we have shared in years. I knew it could go either way and I could find myself in the proverbial wagon surrounded by hair scalping Apaches, but in fact it was all the contrary. I am not sure what it was that triggered this wonderful behaviour, but I have been searching for this moment ever since. No less than two months later, to contrast I was sitting on the opposite side of an angry and full of rage young man that could not be controlled without professional intervention.

I am aware of what resides in my home. It is a mix of genius and what I fear might be an uncontrollable mind. I sometimes hesitate to tell him what I see in him because of fears of inflating his already enormous ego, but he is in fact gifted beyond words. How many rainbows have we seen in our lifetime? Yet every so often a drop of water crosses that singular beam of light that turns into a spectacle of colors, and we seem to always be in awe when it happens. What if you were told that this rare event would not happen ever again? Would you not question the madness of whomever brought you such news? I refuse to give into the ugliness from which we have created some very scary moments together. I want to believe that at some moment in time God will lift the fog and allow his beautiful mind to exist in the company of us all.

Dad