GABFEST

A Letter to My Mother!

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diamae

Mom, I remember you having a mile-long list of things you wanted to realize but could not wait to hang your teacher’s baton to pursue them. You made plans to enjoy life, to breathe and live the world whenever time permitted. You were looking forward to retirement and could not wait.

Your dream was to travel the world, visit countries and see your girls whenever you felt like it, and for as long as you pleased. The plan was for you and Dad to do it the way retirees usually do.

You yearned to jump on board a big cruise liner, sport kaki shorts and Hawaii shirts, sunglasses, designer hat and cruise the world; hop on a plane and land in the nearest town, chronicle your latest adventures, take and share your many photos with us. You dreamed it all and were on track to do just that but it was not to be. The Almighty had a different script and your wishes were diverted, thrown off course.

Your husband first earthquake – he came down with not one but two and three strokes – came like a full force hurricane. It brushed his wits and for the avid reader that he has always been, it was an unintended prescription tantamount to a death sentence. The illness has been progressively eating up his brain and his physical and emotional behavior for a while now; never mind how long but it has been a while.

Locked blindly like a prisoner, it has battered your body but it has not taken an ounce of your energy or soul; and like one good warrior, you have soldiered on, catching the bus or taxi, whatever means of transportation to the hospital everyday, sometimes twice a day to visit your husband, to spoon feed your guy, your soul mate, your man.

Through it all, you tirelessly became his eyes and ears; his translator, his nurse, his companion in chief. You, the once delicate invulnerable flour in my Dad’s eye, metamorphosed into one-woman machine who (un)selfishly and meticulously lives by her very script of “God had other plans for me and I have accepted”, and no one dares say a word because you refuse to hear it.

You just commemorated your 50th wedding anniversary last week and, as expected, you were at the forefront of the magic that it was. I looked forward to seeing you strolling down the aisle, flooded by your loved ones, hand in hand with your unselfishness, and his bashfulness and hearing the priest pronounce you “husband and wife” once again, but it was not to be.

You hoped to haul him up on his wheelchair and wheel him to the church. I recall you wanting to celebrate a deux, fearful that he would not have any recollection or get too fidgety to even grace the event. Instead, the priest came to your house, an altar was erected and “millions” of your friends came to rejoice and toast you. I am jealous!

You have not talked about touring the world lately and I don’t believe you have stopped dreaming, nor accepted the fate that has been delineated for you either. Perhaps, beneath the seemingly stalwart veil, there is a glimpse of hope that you, one day, will be able to be that famous tourist you once longed for after all.

Your devotion to him, your irreplaceable love, transcend imagination. It is beyond belief. Yours is a bond that I will neither be able to mimic nor replicate but observe and be proud of.

Mom, I can vehemently utter that I will never be you; I will never be like you; I will not even pretend to be you, but your daughter I shall always be. You are one of a kind!  Thank you for being my Mom.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Our Neighborhood Shoe Repair Store

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Tucked in between Haagen Dazs, AT&T and Hair O’Dessey in the Pollo Tropical strip mall, is Miami Lakes Shoe Repair.

As often as I have been there, it never donned on me that the proprietor’s name was not Sal but Dom. I really don’t know where I got the name from but as his wife put it, “you must have assumed that because he is Italian”. We all got a kick out of it and laughed about it but honestly, I was a little embarrassed by it. As often I have been there, I should have known.

The thing I love about the place is how courteous and pleasant the couple is – yes, they work together and have been for the past 13 years. They are always gracious, attentive and understanding of their customers even taking their time two years ago, in a busy Saturday afternoon, to help me out with my car when it suddenly died in front of their shop. Funny he is Italian but always passes for a Latino whereas his wife, a Latina from New York could pass for an Italian.

Perhaps, the reason why we keep on coming back and Dom has been at the same location for the past 29 years, yes 29 years, is the quality of work he puts out; it is superb. The master craftsman is always in display. Just when you thought that there is nothing else to salvage of your favorite shoe or bag, here comes Don with his canning mastery. He turns it around and with great skillfulness, and knowledge of the subject, a few hours or days later, delivers the product to you as if it was new; but he is also quick to tell you when you should buy a new pair.

They have become a fixture in town and at time when businesses and strip malls are closing, we look forward to Dom’s 29 more.

My Trip to The Mechanic

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I was looking down with a book on my lap. I was reading “Eat, Pray and Love” when this gregarious, slender lady – she must have been 5’4”, 110 pounds and in her late 50’s to 60’s, walked up and sat on the only (well, there were two; the other was occupied by me) remaining run down, comfortable enough to sit, beach seat.

The lady: “Oh alo! “

Me: “Hello, how are you.”, I replied and went back to my reading.

The lady: “Oh man, I’m tired; djou know”

I did not respond and attempted to continue reading. She drops her bag on the floor, takes some magazines out and lays them on her lap.

(Good, now she will leave me alone. She is entertained reading.) Wrong! In her broken English – not that mine is better – she carries on.

The lady: “Djou know, it is not good to be single specially when djou do not have a man to help djou with too much stuff, djou know; too many stuff. I bring my car here, its brake down. Simply thing djou know but I have to bring here; I have to sit and wait. Just simply djou know.  Little ting here, little ting there, have to do it; alone. Not good djou know, not good “

Me: “I can image”, I said. I could not disagree with her more but why dispute? She was complaining, dusting the feathers out of her chest; so, why help and add more fuel to the fire?

(HUSH PLEASE!) I wanted her quiet. I wanted to read.

The lady: “I am done djou know; done”, she continued.

(Is this the time on the film when I ask her why? I better keep my mouth shut if I really want her to stop and enjoy my Saturday morning in peace while I wait for my car.)

The treaty was observed for a second. She was briefly “sedated” as she read through her magazine that turned out to be none other than the Star Magazine. As if her intoxicating annoyance was not enough, she dared to interrupt my reading again – not once or twice but too many for me to count for Star Magazine.

(OH GOD, IS ANYONE THERE? SOMEONE PLEASE HELP OR I WILL GO INSANE!)

I was ready to crack that WIP; I was going nuts – well this is nothing new; this is my typical self.

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She browsed the Magazine as if she was swimming through shark-infested waters; just glancing through the pages, not actually reading them. She hurriedly flipped through the pages, side to side; one down, go; one down go, next; and then break.

She paused the Magazines on her lap and turned to me once again.

The lady: “Djou know, look at these dresses –while pointing at the page – the starts are wearing. It look like 1940’s and 50’s again djou know. All come back. I and my family wore them like that, djou know. They were beautiful, big like that.”

(Ok, and?!)

Me: “Yeah! It looks like it, doesn’t it?”, I smiled and agreed. It was clear that I was not born at the era but know enough about fashion to concur.

The lady: “But djou could not know; djou too small to know.”

(Thank you madam, I bowed. Thank you for confirming and approving this message but MADAM, YOU ARE BURKING ON MY STAGE NOW. PLEASE GET OFF OR SHUT UP.)

She did not realize it as she continued to constantly barging in, like hungry hyena.

The lady: “Djou know, money is good but it doesn’t solve a lot. Look at these peoples (she was referring to John Travolta and his family) I mean, they have too many, too much djou know but look, look at them, look at them… hum… now they are… suffering, suffer djou know. His son djou know, too big, very big children and now is dead. Don’t know but… hum!”

(Lady, yeah, he was big and your point?)

She puts down the first magazine and picked up another one. She went through at least four, flipping through each page like an assembly line, stopping only as soon as the mechanic announces that her car was ready. She hurriedly lays all of them on the table, gets up, turns to me and do the unthinkable.

The lady: “Here, these for djou. My car is ready now. Take them with djou (the magazines off course; nice present thank you). Enjoy to read. Good story djou know; good story, nice dresses too.”

She is joking right? Me! Reading Star Magazine! She interrupted my session of “Eat, Pray and Love” for this? For the Star tabloid (Celebrity fashion, news, and gossip exclusives. Users can post rumors about their favorite celebrities on the message boards.) Magazine? All that choreography so, she could show me pictures of some celebrities?!

I must have been hallucinating; running high fever or perhaps, have finally landed on the moon because…. As my late friend and ex-colleague Tracy Smith used to say, “Star Magazine is the true newspaper”.  The bug must have caught up with me because I am finally reading at level 17.