A Long Memory…
I’ve put this off for too long, but it’s high time to do this aspect of the right thing and honor the man. I haven’t put this off because I didn’t want to write it up or because I felt it was unneeded. I think if I kept putting this project off, it somehow didn’t quite happen. It was still a dream of sorts and I didn’t really want to wake up, but reality is waiting…and calling.
This story is about a man I met now over forty years ago. This is my story about him, the time we spent and the time we invested. It wasn’t always pretty. There were some major landmines in the road, but this story ended about as well as any possibly could. This is my Dad, Robert (Bob) Reyes, son of Antonio.
On the afternoon of Friday, March 3rd of 2023, my Dad passed away. Even as I write this, I’m having to stop and breathe. Somehow it’s still not allowed to be real, but objective reality isn’t overtly concerned with such nuances as grief or deflection. It is real, but that is only part of the story.
One of my earliest memories of him was I was very little and sitting in the back of my Mom’s blue Dodge RAM. It was the 1980s version of the Ford Bronco and very similar in layout. My mom was driving. We were in Hollister driving back towards Gilroy, our home, and he had a 7-11 Big Gulp…Full…Without cup holders. Care to guess what happened next?
He did get some yelling at. If my memory serves, this was not the first time. He had done something similar in her previous car, whatever that was, too. He was looking for napkins, as if that was going to do anything, with this almost frantic tone in his voice. And what was I doing?! Laughing my head off. Not just because of the tsunami of Coke in the front, but because he was getting in trouble. It wasn’t just me this time – an exciting moment.
We had a lot of fun while driving various places. We didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up and my parent both worked really hard. We almost never took vacations. I can think of maybe three between earliest memory and high school graduation. We drove. And our target destination was ANYWHERE with a breeze. 90 degrees in Gilroy is not the same as 90 degrees in the Central Valley. With Gilroy being tucked up right next to the mountains, there was rarely any breeze unless you made it yourself.
We took bi-weekly day trips down to Salinas along the Central Coast. We’d make a stop at Orange Julius. Mom would shop for a few shirts, etc. while my Dad and I looked for anything else to do. Anything to avoid shopping for clothes. That hatred for clothes shopping still resonates in me today. If I can’t be done in 15-25 minutes, it’s not happening. I’m running out of that store.
Sometimes he and I would take solo trips to San Juan Bautista to visit his dad, my grandpa. Unfortunately, my Spaniard and Mexican grandpa didn’t speak much English, but he would beam when I would stumble through my 1-10 numbering in Spanish and then take my to show off his amazing cornucopia of a garden. There was nothing that man couldn’t make grow. Even fruits and vegetables that had no business growing in that region.
My Dad drove a very metallic orange Nissan pickup for many years. This was the pickup I grew up in. This was the pickup where I rode in the back from Gilroy to Modesto. It was legal(ish) back then. I remember being so very impressed that he could drive a manual transmission without even looking. He would just magically knew what to do and the truck moved along. Even Mom couldn’t do that, but the magic of youth does wear off after a while.
Some years later, when I was just barely learning to drive, he was get frustrated with me and we’d brake for a bit. Mom later told me that he never knew how to drive a manual transmission until she taught him several years into either dating or marriage. I can’t remember which anymore. She popped that illusionary bubble, but I got a bit of ammo in exchange. I was content and subsequently deployed said ammo when I thought he was getting a little puffy about his perfected skill that he had since birth or some such nonsense.
Oh the things we remember.
My dad was an incredibly hard worker. In his prime working for Caltrans, he was getting attention from State-wide leadership in the organization for a number of things:
- Amount of overtime: Tied #1 or #2 in the State on several occasions.
- The number of counties beyond Santa Clara that wanted to borrow him for paving jobs especially.
- Running heavy equipment
- Calculating and running paving crews.
That last one was almost creepy. When I was a teen, I would throw him numbers of length, number of lanes and depth. Within 5-9 second, he would then tell me how many TONS of asphalt mix he would need. Math is all well and good, but what about the practical you say? He would tell critical crews to go home 3-4 hours early at night because they had enough mix and hauling to finish. Bets were made. Trash talking was done. And the vast majority of time there would be 2-5 shovels full as leftover and not whole semi-truck loads. The veteran workers he supervised usually stopped betting, but always encouraged the new guys to.
That said, there were certainly times I missed him. If it rained, I knew I wasn’t going to see him much that day or even for several days if it was a big storm. Trees would fall. Roads would be covered in mud. People would drive foolishly. Life and the plethora of accidents contained therein would occur. This just made my time as a young kid popping his newspaper and standing in front of him as he tried to read that much better. The times it really got to me were the holidays in Fall and Winter. Most all of his co-workers would magically forget how to answer a phone to go deal with an accident or damaged barrels or guardrail so he would go. Most, but not all thankfully.
Anyone who had met him for longer than 30 seconds also knew he wasn’t overly fond of drama or political maneuvering. He wasn’t going to do the dance. He was going to get the flamethrower to kill the fly and have done with it. Those times were, thankfully, rare. Most of the time he would just disappear and hope the drama would sort itself. He didn’t really care and didn’t want to be around those stirring it up.
As I got older, he and I grew distant. Some reasons are common to being a teenager. Some because he worked a lot still, but more so than anything, he and I are very different people. My Dad, while kind most of the time, did not know how to connect very well emotionally. That’s true of most guys as a species, but in my adult years I’ve since discovered a number of the other reasons why and thus I can extend a bit more grace now than I could back then. As he and I both aged, that disconnect grew. Though most who only know me superficially would be stunned to know, I do feel very deeply about a wide variety of things. The Ivy League School of Life teaches one how dangerous it can be to live with those feeling in an unrefined fashion so I present a firm exterior to most everyone – walk softly but carry a boom-stick. Something like that. It serves its purpose 99% of the time.
After he and my Mom separated, my Dad and I lost contact in most ways that were meaningful. What we had, for better or worse, was fundamentally broken and would never, could never be remade. Several years afterwards, however, I began to process the depth of the change, but also that it didn’t mean things couldn’t be different. This wasn’t a dead end unless we wanted it to be.
A number of months before my wedding in 2011, he and I had a major falling out. This was a bad one. It hurt on top of everything that had transpired between him and my mom a number of years earlier plus what I had on me at the time. I didn’t want him there. I didn’t want him around. I didn’t realize yet how to move past those circumstances yet. In some ways, it’s similar to some of my opening statements here. It’s not allowed to be real and yet here we are.
There was a solid 2-3 year disconnect apart from a few minor things. Obviously his first grandson was a big deal and the subsequent birthdays.
I had so many good memories with my grandparents and I didn’t want either of my boys to miss out. It’s a very special kind of relationship. And then #2 came along.
Both of my boys loved him very much. They would cling on to him, even dangerously sometimes, whenever they saw him. He could do no wrong. As it turned out, my Dad came up to the house roughly four days prior to his passing. My boys got to see him and play with him. I was thrilled they had recent memories of him prior to losing him. It’s still not allowed to be real…I hate it, but I can’t change it either.
I’m going to switch gears here just a wee bit. As one might conclude, my faith and practical relationship with Christ are a pretty central theme in my life. Without digging into this overtly deep, any relationship of any kind can only exist with some degree of two-way communication. Adam/Man broke it. Jesus made that possible for us again.
While my dad was socially Catholic, it was rarely something he ever wanted to discuss. Even as I came to a saving faith myself at 19, he was adamant that being a good person was sufficient. We would never debate, but I would offer him passages out of the scriptures that challenged that belief. He would think about it and we would usually go on to another topic or do something else for a bit.
I was at a prayer meeting at the church-house less than two days prior to his passing. During my prayer time that Wednesday evening, I heard very loud and clear, “Pray for your Dad and your Cousin.”
It came out of the blue and stopped me mid-sentence. And so I did. It felt urgent. It felt heavy. I had no meaningful rational/horizontal reason to feel that way. I don’t remember what I said exactly. I asked for Him to get their attention regarding their choice for eternity, keep them safe and topics of that sort. I was left breathless for a few minutes, but the heaviness and sense of urgency were both gone. I heard from them both on Thursday and from my Dad Friday morning. Nothing meaningful had occurred at that point so I went about my day and yet kept a weather eye open.
On Friday afternoon around 1pm I get this…
That’s odd for him. He doesn’t do one-liners out of the blue like that. I went on break from work a few minutes later and called. He was out working on a job. He seemed a bit out of breath, but it was really warm and he’d be out there for several hours. It was a very strange conversation. I’m not sure if he even knew why he called. We talked for a bit and I asked him if he was doing okay. I got the stock reply – fine. I was planning to head up to my Mom’s house that weekend and told him I would see him on my way back. As the call ended, I vividly remember feeling uneasy and fairly certain that second part of the statement wouldn’t be happening. There was still no horizonal/rational reason to feel I wouldn’t see him. The rest of the afternoon carried forward, but I was uneasy, restless.
Around 6pm I got a phone call from a unknown cell phone in the Hollister area…In the seconds it took me to answer the call, a number of phrases went through my head…
Oh what fresh hell is this…
Stop being paranoid…Oh ok…Try to stop being paranoid…
It’ll be fine.
It was his wife’s sister, a CHP officer. I had spoken to this person once in over a decade. Oh no…
To this day, I can’t commend her enough for her professional detachment and handling of such a grievous situation that was directly impacting her too. She and her sister were now at the hospital in San Jose. They had been called roughly two hours ago. He had collapsed on the job site from what was later discovered to be massive heart attack. Emergency services got there very quick, but they were unable to pull him back.
The call ended with my stating that I would be going to the hospital shortly, a drive of roughly one hour.
I stormed out of my room. I can’t imagine the look on my face, but my roommate at the time went saucer eyed and asked me what was wrong…All I could manage to say in a rather commanding tone was, “Outside. Now.”
It was a hard blow for us both – an obvious understatement.
As I drove, I called the one cousin I’m particularly close with to tell him and see if he wanted to join me in this last minute honor guard detachment. He did. The drive was somewhat surreal, but we talked and even joked a bit.
After arriving at the hospital, we eventually made it back to where my Dad’s body was. They hadn’t moved him yet from the ER room where they worked to save him. In more ways than I will recount here, death has been familiar aspect of my life over the years. Not necessarily just with people, but probably more than most. I’m not afraid of it. It doesn’t phase me much in and of itself. I looked down and remembered. I remembered some of the stories I’ve shared here. I remembered some of the stories I later shared at the service. I remembered some of the absolutely infuriating times. My cousin, who stood next to me, was grieving too in his own way. It was very real for us both.
After some degree of time had gone by, I remember saying quietly, as if to myself, “I hope he chose well.”
I ran over verses from the Bible about this sort of thing. I was thinking about how I’ve experienced some of the ways G-d is loving, gracious, merciful, but also true and just. Whatever happened, I knew and found comfort that my Dad was given every possible encouragement and every last nanosecond to choose well, to choose the Salvation that Christ offers.
As I went to say it again, I was interrupted, “I hope he ch…”
“I’ve got him.”
My legs almost gave way.
He made it Home. He’s young again, strong again, whole and safe. I will see him again. This was an lofty and precious gift G-d gave me.
I know how stubborn and thick headed my Dad could be. G-d had made it very plain in those final moments and, despite His being in all places with all power and all knowledge, He doesn’t make us choose Him. It’s not about the ceremonies. It’s not about the synthetic things we use as personal control levers. He just makes it plain from Him to us and no one in between.
How precious is the flow,
That makes me white as snow,
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus…
If you haven’t made that choice for yourself, I hope you’ll begin asking questions. He’s not afraid of hard ones. You know how I know that?
If you have already made that choice, don’t give up on the people you’re connected with. Tune out Facebook and the sociopolitical maelstrom of other distractions. Tune into the relationship and enjoy the conversation. He’s already speaking, but do we truly want to listen? Can we allow Him to be G-d for even a few moments? (Psalm 78:40-42) I can tell you from personal experience that relational precision is a critical skill to refine, but it starts and almost entirely depends on a heart sync between us individually and Him. It’s far less about mere intellectual acknowledgement.
When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. – John 10:4
How do they know it? They hear it often. People trained to spot counterfeit money don’t study the wide variety of lies. They envelop, embrace the nuance of what is true.
The Sunday checkbox isn’t enough. Not for us and not for those around us who are looking, needing something powerful, legitimate, something more than another social obligation or clique.
One thing I shared at the funeral service was how important it is to not mere spend time, but rather to invest it, redeem it. My Dad and I lost a lot of years due to a litany of circumstances and choices, but we had just begun to rebuild things, to entertain that impossible scenario where things could be different. I really wish we got further than we did, but I’m also grateful for what time we had.
After his funeral services were completed, I ran some math and concluded his heart attack must have occurred a maximum of 90 minutes after our phone call ended. Investment is deliberate. Spending is casual. I’m very glad I decided to invest in what became such a critical moment. Only a few years prior, I very likely would not have called back.
In the meanwhile, I’ve still got some miles left in me and much to be doing. It’s time to get after it.