Macabre Moments

Sometimes I wish I could dwell in my grief. There are days where that cave seems welcoming, to be surrounded by the echoes of my despair, just to completely give in to these feelings.

But it’s not ideal.

I don’t think I’ll ever completely learn to live without you and accepting it is twice as hard. You may be gone physically, but I feel you.

I’ve said I wanted to keep things as they were—talking to someone every day of your life is routine, especially in our family. But, just because I can’t tell you what’s happened in my life so far doesn’t mean I can’t reach you somehow, bro.

So, here’s what you’ve missed:

Jack is ten months old today. At first he was army-crawling everywhere, but now he crawls like there’s no tomorrow. We’re constantly chasing him. He can stand on his two feet as long as he has something to hold. And he puts everything in his mouth—TV remotes, Xbox controllers, his shoes, my Apple Watch, the list goes on. I know you would’ve judged me on the watch. But I can’t say no without him crying. He knows when I’m being serious now. You would’ve been the perfect person to interact with him. I think your goofiness would’ve had him laughing nonstop.

He grabs everything, too. One thing he always tries to grab is my glasses. He’s already stretched out them out once and broken a pair. He probably would’ve broken yours, too, even if you try to evade him, his grip is like kung fu. And he pulls my beard. Yours wouldn’t have been safe either.

Jack is eating solids, slowly, but he does. He absolutely hates banana and eggs. Every time we try to feed him that, he spits it out and makes a fuchi face. For his six months, I cooked him a steak for him to suck on. We FaceTimed everyone, and even put up small decorations for the occasion. In the end his steak was just another meal for me. So far he’s had chicken, rice, beans, steamed veggies, quesadillas, and Mac and cheese, from what I can remember. Oh, and fruit. He loves peaches and oranges.

He’s so expressive now, too. He makes the funniest faces and I know when he’s feeling sad or frustrated or being a goofball. I hope he grows up to have your sense of humor. I often think of that when I see his small dimples. A part of me hopes his eyes would turn green so I can look at them and see you. I can dream of it—for Jack to have green eyes and deep dimples like you. He already has the same initials as you.

He’s growing fast. I can’t blink, bro. I can’t slow the time down and every day just seems to pass me by. He’s almost at his first birthday, can you believe it? I remember sending a picture of him when he was born.. on the 9th of September at 9:08 p.m. You were the first one to reply—you always were when it came to Jack—not a second too late either. You had just been in town two weeks prior helping me move into the new house. And your reply was something I didn’t expect. You said you wanted to come back and meet Jack the same night. I’ll never forget it.

We took him out on a couple pool days when the heat was unbearable (it always is). We bought him a small float where he can waddle his feet and splash the water with his hands. He was a bit too curious about the water, though, and ended up reaching far enough he almost tipped over. He swallowed some water, got scared, and cried a bit. But, not too much.

Now an update on me. It’s not foreign for me to keep everyone in the loop with everything. I got a promotion in May. Landed me a nice little office, more privacy, and a bit more freedom. It’s not too bad, but sometimes feels like a prison cell because there’s no fucking windows. But whatever, I’ll take that over working out where the sun burns my skin any day.

I started writing again, too. I don’t know if you ever read the stories I wrote, I hope you did, but I don’t think they were your genre. Anyway, I had stopped writing for a bit. I told myself I couldn’t make the time because of school, but I think that was a lie masking my fear of failure. I have dreams of being published one day—I don’t think I’ve said that out loud before—and I won’t ever get there if my fears control me. I’m telling you this because when I think about those fears, I think of you and how fearless you were. Failure wasn’t in your vocabulary, it wasn’t even in your thought process. You did whatever you wanted without thinking about the possibility of failure. Even if you did fail, it never stopped you from being a force and moving on and trying again. So why should I let it control me, if you controlled it all the time?

Besides that, everything is still the same. Steph and I have been making home improvements here and there. I always looked forward to telling you what I was working on around the house just because your house is a couple of blocks away. It felt like we were both improving our respective homes one screw at a time.

Oh, the World Cup started, too. I try to watch the matches you would think would be good. Mexico was on a winning streak; 2-0 vs. South Africa, 1-0 vs. South Korea, 3-0 vs. Czechia, and 2-0 vs. Ecuador. They put Memo in after the 2nd goal during the Korea match; I hear he might be retiring soon. Makes sense. I remember when you were a goalie as a kid and always talking about how good Memo was. That was a long time ago.

The Argentina vs. Cape Verde match was insane. Back-to-back goals, each team pushing the other to the brink. Pero ya sabes, Messi and his team won in overtime, 3-2. If it had me on the edge of my seat, you would’ve been worse. I can picture you yelling and screaming with Manuel.

Mexico lost to England, 3-2. England scored back to back within two minutes in the first half around the 36’ mark. I imagined your reactions, and yelled out “Puta madre!” on the second goal. I almost heard it echoing in my ear with your voice. England scored again in the second half, maybe ten minutes or so from the start. But, Jimenez scored with a penalty not long after that, 3-2. Pero así quedó carnal; México no pudo con un milagro ni con los once minutos de tiempo extra. Y ya cuando acabó, deje caer mi cabeza. Sentí una tristeza enorme bro.. porque me imaginé los gestos y todo lo que tú hubieras dicho. Sé que estuvieras decepcionado, tanto que amabas el futbol. Por eso me salieron lágrimas.

I hope you get this, G. Como dijo Cubby, I put these out there in the void, hoping you can read them, sense them, hoping you know you’re still very much in our lives.

I should be telling you this in person, pero la vida no es así. Te quiero mucho carnal, I miss you every day.

Hasta pronto.