grandpa

Black and White

Today is Cindy’s birthday. She is the most extraordinary woman I know and I am fortunate beyond words that she walked into my life when she did. She has given me life beyond expectation and children of unparalleled wonder. Hers is a remarkable story, one I hope she shares one day.

Here’s a single thread, nicely sewn.
Enjoy!

The thing about Cindy… she’s so black and white.
She knows what is wrong and she knows what is right.

All the gray matters that bounce in her brain
are pregnant to pour like a storm cloud of rain.

She’s witnessed a world from land mass to sea
for around 30 years before she met me.

Some of those years were spent solemn and sad,
though no sadder than you if you lived the life that she had.

Cindy was born to a mommy who loved her,
then faded from life with the birth of her brother.

This was at 3, that era of days
when eyes wide with wonder soak in the world’s ways.

Unfortunately her father just couldn’t quite cope,
with a a life that was fraying like a soaking wet rope

So she and her brother were gathered then dropped,
with the care of a floor that’s about to get mopped.

Both were abandoned at grandparents’ farm;
one filled with good and the other with harm.

Grandma was kind and caring and clean.
Grandpa was dirty and violent and mean.

Cindy was saddled with a long list of chores;
she milked all the cows and cleaned all the floors.

The hero of our tale was not yet quite four
when required to wander from childhood’s front door.

Unspeakable awful transpired in that place,
branding her memories that time can’t erase.

That’s where she stayed until she was five,
then retrieved by her father just kind of alive.

I’d love to report things improved from that day,
but life grew so dim she looked forward to gray.

A venomous father and step monster who stung,
filled her with secrets then cut out her tongue.

Now who would you be if that was your start?
If life battered and beat down and bruised up your heart?

If that were me, I have to confess,
I’d be an immeasurable immovable mess.

But Cindy has soul that is sterling like silver
and only gets stronger when stuff doesn’t kill her.

She turned 18 and left. She never glanced back,
looking forward instead for a life to attack.

She finished with school and started to teach,
in search of raw minds that were ready to reach.

She crossed a few continents from Asia to Europe,
her years to experience like pancakes to syrup.

Her effort was noted, her horn it was tooted;
rewarded, awarded, then she was recruited.

They brought her to Cali – that’s where she met me,
a big burning sun and a brilliant blue sea.

We felt an inferno from our very first spark -
the light of my laughter full flooding her dark.

She had the wisdom to water my seed;
the honest integrity I knew I would need.

It’s been one dozen years since we knitted our lives
and 2/3 at 8 since I made her my wife.

There is no doubt that we both have grown,
but here are some things that I’ve always known:

Cindy is soulful, her eyes would agree.
I still get the shivers when she throws them at me.

Her heels always dig in so deep for a fight
whenever she sees what she knows isn’t right.

Her belief in small children and all they can do
is unfortunately shared by a relative few.

Cindy’s unfailing faith in the poise of my pen
is a little bit humbling and little bit zen.

Two years ago I wrote nothing at all,
but during one winter, one spring and one fall

She said I should scribble. She pleaded, “JUST WRITE!”
She told me in daylight and again late at night.

She believed what I didn’t, but I did as she said.
I wrote and I wrote ‘til my fingers were red.

Now I pen paragraphs of poetry and prose.
My language in bloom like the blush of a rose.

My words (like my Cindy) are all black and white,
but between all the spaces the colors are bright.

Life is now lovely and laden with laughter.
The two of us living in our ever after.

Writer Dad

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Adios Papí, Un Tiempo Finalamente.

“Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.”

~Mark Twain

Yesterday we returned to my grandfather’s farewell. Today, I’d like to visit some words, written a while before my grandfather passed.

During the last few years of Papí’s life, I drove to visit him every Saturday. In the final month, it was a hospital bed where he lay, struggling for breath. At the time, I was writing simple rhymes designed for children. I’d hold Papi’s hand and read stories from a thin red binder; the same notebook I gave to my father for Father’s Day when I first told him I was writing.

Every week, Papí would lift his head from the sheets as I entered the room.

“Are you published yet?” he’d ask.

“No, Papí,” I’d say. “Not yet.”

Thankfully, on the weekend before his last, I said, “Guess what, Papí? I have a publisher, and they want to publish everything.”

Besides the one about Santa, that might be the only lie I’ve ever felt comfortable with. It’s certainly the only one I’ve ever been proud of.

At his eulogy, this was the song I sang:

Jose Ramos, Daddy, Papí. A man impossible to copy,
with a one and only inclination to live his life with such elation,
joy and mischief, mirth, and cheer; too much for one century, minus a year.

Papí was gentle, and unbelievably funny. He valued fellowship far over money.
He always looked forward, without regret, and never abandoned a window to bet.
He meant so much to me in his immovable place. Sometimes I look in the mirror and still see his face.

Ever since the time I was small, a sassy little know it all,
he and Honey guided me, to the best that I could be.
Every weekend of my youth, with conduct perhaps a little uncouth,
they took me in and they taught me well. But more than just to speak and spell.
They taught other messages, a lot more essential, like meeting and making my moral potential.

They trained me not to cheat or lie, to never quit and always try,
to speak my mind and wait my turn, to show compassion and concern,
to all my neighbors lend them a hand, or maybe an ear to understand.

The most significant lesson that I learned, a powerful example burned
(in my mind like I was branded), they both taught me single handed
how to treat my only other – as though the world could hold no other
one who could ever hope to compare, no matter who, and no matter where.

They loved each other without doubt, without dearth, and without drought.
Even though I was only a little kid, I know exactly how much it did.
It showed me what to want from life, then led me toward my perfect wife.

If I could ever travel back, take the years and flip the stack,
I’d look them in their younger eyes and thank them true for being wise
and providing me a perfect picture to follow like a written scripture.

I grew up, and added years, a bigger nose and longer ears.
By the time that I was mature, walking real tall and talking real sure.
I saw Papí from a different position, with what I’d already seen plus another addition.

It’s not the years in our life but the life in our years, the gray in our hair and the salt in our tears.
The smiles we carry and people we meet, the flavors of life from sour to sweet.
Papi’s a man who met wisdom with age, by living his life like he lived it on stage.
I’ll never forget him if I’m a hundred and five. In my heart I will always keep Papi alive.

Writer Dad

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Black and White

Writer Dad

Adios Papí, Un Tiempo Finalamente.

At his eulogy, this was the song I sang:

Writer Dad

A Promise to My Family

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