Obed Silva - The Death of My Father the Pope: A Memoir

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This book is dedicated to

THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE ALCOHOLIC

WHO STILL SUFFERS

THATS ALL! OH, YEMELYAN, YEMELYAN, THOUGHT I, DRINK HAS BEEN YOUR UNDOING, AND NO MISTAKE!

FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY,An Honest Thief

JULY 13, 2009

Im asleep when the phone rings. I can hear it, but I cant make out whether Im dreaming or if its really ringing. I open my blurry eyes and reach for my phone. I can make out that the number on the screen is from Mexico. I rub my eyes with one hand and press the answer button with the other. Holding the phone to my ear, I hear my brother Aarn breathing heavily on the other end, desperately attempting to speak. Se se se fue, he cries out between gaspsOur father died. I say nothing, like the rays of the ascending sun breaking through the cracks in the curtains. What can I say? What am I supposed to say? My heart doesnt provide me with any words to speak. Slowly I bring the phone down to my chest and stare up at the white and empty ceiling, listening to my brothers cries as they break through the speaker. Hes dead. My father is finally dead.

The urgent voice of a woman comes through the speaker. Bueno? Bueno?

S, bueno? I say calmly, when I again put the phone to my ear.

Who are you, sir? the woman asks with concern.

Im his brother. And you are you a friend of

No, no, Im a nurse here at the hospital. I was here when your father passed. He is also your father, right?

Yes. He he was.

Yesof course, Im sorry, I didnt mean to

Its okay. Please, dont apologize.

Where are you? she asks. Are you coming? This boy needs someone to be with him. Hes in a lot of pain, and he doesnt know what to do.

In the background I can hear my brother still crying for our father, every new cry louder than the last.

Im in California, I tell her. Ill be on my way as soon as possible. Im still in bed and havent made any effort to get up. With the phone pressed to my ear, I look toward the window and wonder how hot the day will be later. Its been terribly hot all summer.

California! she remarks with surprise. Oh, no. Youre too far! This boy needs somebody now. Can somebody come now?

Im sorry yes, of course. Ill call his mother.

Aarn called me at exactly 5:34 a.m. I was the first person he called, the one who was also the farthest away. Hed called me the morning before to inform me that our father had been admitted to the hospital. Whats wrong with him this time? Id asked coldly, annoyed at having been awakened so early in the morning.

The same thing as last time. He needs blood, my brother said with urgency, as if hed been speaking to a representative at a blood bank and was about to place an order for a few pints.

So give him blood. Whats the problem? I told him, with a direct voice, doctor-like. Little did I know that my father had run out of options, and filling him with someone elses blood was no longer going to help. In the months leading up to this moment, hed been battling cirrhosis and hepatitis C. Going to the hospital every couple weeks because he was losing blood had become routine. But even more routine was his drinking, something hed been doing daily since before he was a teenager. My father had been an alcoholic. Hed drunk for most of his life. Now, at forty-eight, his cirrhotic liver had finally stopped working, and he was dead.

It was sometime in January that my fathers wife Cokis first called to tell me hed been admitted to the hospital for losing blood. He keeps vomiting and shitting it out, she said. He cant hold it in. When I asked why, she very matter-of-factly told me it was because of his drinking. Id thought it was no big deal. My father would get the blood he needed and be on his way, which, as it would turn out, is exactly what happened. The hospital kept him overnight and nurses restocked his body with blood. The following morning my father stepped out of the cold, white halls of the hospital into the warm light of a new daybody reenergized and hope renewed.

All right then, I said to Cokis. Ill send money tomorrow for whatever he may need, and tell him to call me as soon as he gets out. Money was all I could do for him. Every time my father had called to tell me about a problem he had, whether it had to do with work or the family or his health, I sent money. It would make me feel better, and my father always seemed to feel better, too. When Id tell him that Id be sending him a couple hundred dollars within a few days, hed suddenly stop talking about his problem, because he no longer had any. Gracias, hijo! hed say with excitement. I could see him smiling from ear to ear on the other end. Id smile, too, knowing that my father was full of shit.

Id debated whether to go to my fathers funeral, and at some point had decided not to. Surprisingly, it was my mother who convinced me. Ve, she said, you need to go.

Why? I asked her. What would be the point? Hes already dead, and everything I needed to tell him I already told him while he was alive, like that I didnt love him, or that I wished he was dead.

This is exactly why you need to go, my mother insisted. You need to heal, and you cant do that unless you forgive your father. Its the only way youre ever going to close those wounds.

I thought about this idea. People always talk about healing through forgiveness, about not being able to move on unless you forgive. And although I didnt ask her, I wondered if she had forgiven my father. The grief Id suffered at his whim was nothing compared to what hed put her through. I couldnt imagine the pain that shed had to endure living with my father for the few years that she did.

That morning, sitting across from her at the kitchen table, I had newfound admiration for my mother. This woman whod raised me all on her own without asking for anything from my fathernot a centwas showing me what real strength looked like. It wasnt in muscles or in violence or in superiority; it was in meekness and humility, in simply saying I forgive you and moving on. Nothing gained, nothing lost, just moving forward with life and making the best of it for the ones you love. My mother loved me. Always. Unconditionally. Always. Id been her struggle, her purpose, and later so were my sister Samantha and brother Roberto. Shed had to let go of any resentment and bitterness shed felt toward my father if she had wanted to move on and create a better life for herself and her family, and she did. Fully self-made. Fully self-empowered. She knew her worth.

If you dont go, you will regret it later, she said, and you dont want to live with regret, son. It will hold you back. So go. Go and make peace with your father. Go and put him behind you.

The next day Im on a flight to Chihuahua. I should be there by five p.m. By then my father will already have been buried. His funerals set to be at three, exactly one hour from now. This is a good thing, because I dont want to be there among his mourners as hes being lowered into the ground, among those who loved him, and those who hated himtoo many lies and too many tears. Some will cry and ask God why, but most will simply stare out at a cold casket and think of how the man inside had drunk himself to death. Someone will also uncap a beer and drink it on his behalf. For you, Juanito! For you, my good friend! And for the many! The mourning soul will raise a bottle to the sky as if toasting with my fathers ghost; and then, as if holding the last beer on earth, will consume it in one long, savory gulp. Ahhh! will be the resounding proclamation of that quenched mouth.