Winter Memories

It was October of 2018 when I passed out at an emergency room.

I had been suffering from a random headache that for some reason didn’t seem to go away. I don’t know how I knew but I knew. I knew something was the matter with me. Something was not right.

Finally, I woke up plugged into life support machinery at the emergency room. My friend told me I would be transferred to the main hospital down the street.

During this time, I was going through some pretty heavy emotional things. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue my current relationship. I wasn’t sure if moving to New Mexico would solve the relationship problems I had. I simply wasn’t sure what I was doing with my life. And definitely not in the romantic aspect.

Well, the diagnosis came through, and yes it was non-Hotchkins B-cell lymphoma. The good type of cancer…What type of cancer is good?! I understood the sentiment but disagreed.

If anything, I would say the hardest hit was both emotional and psychological. Emotional because it resurfaced memories of my own father in the hospital in 99 at City of Hope. The visitations, appointments, and discussions all around his cancer. I must admit that as a child, I really didn’t understand and he was hospitalized more often than not. I knew he was sick but he had been sick for about 4 years at the time. I thought. I think we all thought for sure he would come out again as he had in the last 4 years and join us for the Christmas holiday.

The fall of 1999 he went into the hospital the day before thanksgiving and didn’t make it to Christmas of 99. He passed away on the 14th of December and was buried on the 17th of December. To this day that was the most heart-wrenching, coldest darkest and loneliest holiday I ever experienced

Primarily because my father was the embodiment of the Christmas spirit. He was our Santa Clause. He would dress up in the red coat, with his black work boots, and a big grand Santa hat. He would come in with his big resounding laughter with freshly cut Christmas trees, industrial trash bins full of chestnuts, and of course toys and presents for myself and cousins. He would take us for holiday strolls to experience holiday lights and décor. To the mountainous ranges ]filled with lightly falling snowflakes that covered the floor where we could build snowmen, snow angels, or just roll around in the snow.

To this day, people often wonder and ask how is it that the winter season isn’t depressing for me. The truth is even though my father passed away during this holiday he also left a vacancy.

Because you see, he was the glue that kept us together. He was the one who broke his back through extreme weather to provide for his family. Mother and siblings. And with all his flaws there wasn’t a single soul who didn’t eventually love him.

Especially us kids.

Tio Roman! Tio Roman! My cousins would yell in delight when he would come home with a truck load of goodies and sometimes piles of dirt or gravel after a construction site job. But whether it was truckloads of toys and goodies. Or gravel, sand and tools. We had an extra twinkle in our eyes and warmth in our hearts to hear his truck driving up the driveway.

So of course, Christmas was an extra special holiday. Not only because of the gifts but the jolly conversations, jingling laughter, and the smells of cinnamon wreaths in the air. And that wintery crisp cool air filled our lungs. The very same air he was no longer able to breathe in Christmas of 99.

Memories like this of being by his bedside when my father took his last breath on December 14 1999 played like a real inside my head during my winter in the hospital. And although his body went cold during that bitter winter night. I can say winter is my favorite season because it reminds me of a jolly man with a resounding laughter that like Santa only existed during my childhood.