We expected my grandfather to die soon, his health had been depleting over the years and we knew that he had lived a fruitful life retelling his amazing and glorious war stories, sharing his testimony, enjoying his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, taking care of animals and sweets, whether it was Sees Candies or pan dulce. Here are some of my sweetest memories of my one and only true hero. I'm his only granddaughter.
28. He always did the "California Stop" when driving. My mom always used to tell him, "You're going to get pulled over." It was cute, his stops would last for like one second, you'd think a teenager was driving his car."
27. We would go to Rite-Aid often, and he would always buy me ice cream. We would go to random stores like Chavez Supermarket or Mi Pueblo and he would always let me get a pink popcorn, choose my own pan dulce, get strawberry milk, or get a strawberry helado. He always, always bought me sweets.
26. He never really reprimanded me, I believe that my brother and I were really well behaved kids, every now and then we would get energetic or get the giggles but he always had patience with us. If anything, he would say, "Cut it out!" One time, I disobeyed him and the result was bloody. His dog Coco and my Tia's dog Princess were both in the backyard, separated by the gate. He told me that I had to choose which one I wanted to play with, and that I had to keep the gate closed between the two of them. Well, I didn't and they both got into a bad fight, and I saw little drops of blood here and there. I remember it vaguely, and I knew I should have gotten into more trouble, but I didn't. I don't think I ever disobeyed him after that.
25. He loved Sizzler! One of his birthday's, all of the family was there together, and he realized that he had brought the house phone in his pocket. I'm not sure if you heard me, the HOUSE phone! Silly guy!
24. Him and I were watching Pearl Harbor together, it was my idea. For those of us who have seen the movie, there is a beautiful love scene in which the girl and Josh Hartnett's character make love in a room full of parachutes, it gets a little heated, not raunchy, really artistic but it's still a love scene! If you think watching a love scene with your parents is awkward, watching a love scene with your grandfather is like torture. There was an awkward silence, I got really stiff, and all he said was, "Welp, there's human nature."
23. He loved war movies, "Saving Private Ryan", "Pearl Harbor", and of course, "Memphis Belle". Every now and then, I would ask him if we could watch it together and he never hesitated. This was his favorite movie and I learned a lot about what he went through during the war from this movie.
22. I remember always being at my grandparents' house when I was younger. My grandparents' house was funner than my parent's house, rightfully so. Nani had always made the best lunches and dinners and I literally had pan dulce, pumpkin pie, or muffins every night, with coffee. Tot was always working in the garage, or in the yard. I could play for hours with the dogs: Coco and Brandy. One particular time, he told me that it was time to take a nap. I always napped with my Nani, and it was always a struggle getting me to go to sleep. One time, I had to nap with Tot because Nani was gone. He told me we were going to nap for one hour. I didn't know what an "hour" was at the time, so I got in bed, under the covers, and I counted to 100 in a whisper voice. After counting to 100, I woke him up saying, "It's been an hour." All he did was chuckle, and then proceeded to go back to sleep, and I just laid there, perplexed, I eventually fell asleep as well.
21. I would always be at my grandparents' house for large periods of time. And for about 6 months straight, whenever I would get there, I would run straight back to my Tot's room and he would put on "Peter Pan" for me. The Indians in the movie intrigued me, and I think he knew that. He would also film movies like, "Beauty and the Beast" for me and give them to me on VHS. I can still see the writing in my head that said, "Beauty and the Beast" on the tape.
20. Tot would always be doing "paperwork", always. In fact, I can remember his room being full of mail, envelopes, and newsletters from places like The Humane Society, Christian organizations, and Indian Reservations. I had never seen that much paperwork in my life. I felt like he wanted to keep busy.
19. He always carried pens in his guayabera shirts. And they were never "current" or "modern" pens, they looked outdated, and old, from like the 70's. He had to have had at least 3 or 4 in his shirt at a time.
18. This man LOVED animals, loved them. If he saw you mistreat an animal, that would probably be the only time he wouldn't act like a Christian. Animal abuse infuriated him, the Humane Society commercials made him cry, he didn't like movies where there were scenes of an animal suffering, and through him, I learned how to treat animals. He loved his dogs, and I can still smell the scent of the flea remover on his fingers on the hot summer days where he would "treat" Coco. My Nani said that he would buy bird food to feed the neighborhood birds, and a slew of them would come to their backyard. Everyone would tell him, "You know, you're not helping them, you're hurting them by feeding them," but he didn't care.
17. This man LOVED sugar! All I saw in that house was white paper bags of pan dulce from El Buen Gusto panaderia, muffins, pumpkin pies, cookies from the Dollar Store. My ultimate favorite, he would have bags from the grocery store, the small clear kind you would put fruit in, those bags would be filled with donuts, and the chocolate would have melted and spread to the other donuts and all over the inside of the bag, and it would just look plain nasty, but those donuts would taste so good. There would be multiple occasions where during Christmas or Thanksgiving, Tot would disappear from the festivities. And out of nowhere, one of us would be like, "Where's Tot?" He would be hiding in the room, eating his Sees Candie, he was so sneaky! Thank God he didn't, but he should have had diabetes.
16. He taught me how to dunk, and no, not in basketball, but with pan dulce and cookies in milk. He taught me the technique of getting my hands wet with milk, and dunking for long enough to not be soggy, and short enough to not be hard. In fact, I've only met a few people who do dunk, and I pride myself in the fact that he taught me how to.
15. His hair was always perfect, always, with a perfect little wave curl on the top of his head. He never lost his hair either. One time I asked him, "How long does it take you to do your hair?" He jokingly responded, "Hours!" He told me that he never used gel either, only water. He used to do my brother's hair too, he would part it to the side.
14. I don't think he realized this but, he read with his middle finger up in the air. Most people read with their pointer finger, but he read with his middle. I don't think he recognized that this could be semi-offensive in our culture. He would sometimes talk with his middle finger too! None of us would tell him anything, we would just laugh and make eye contact with one another.
13. I was younger, probably too young to be sitting in the front seat. but I was anyways, I asked him, "Tot, what's it like to drive a car?" He said, "You want to give it a try?" Of course I said yes. We were on Tully road, about to turn onto Mount Clare and I turned the wheel way too fast, and way too hard. But sure enough, he was prepared to save our lives. I'll never forget that.
12. He never answered the phone normally. It was never, "Hi mija, how are you?" He always pretended to forget my name, then proceeded to joke around for about two minutes. Then, he always asked how school and work was. Always a joker, always sincere.
11. He called my boyfriend, fiance, and now husband, "James". Everyone always corrected him and said, "It's Ryan, dad" or, "It's Ryan, Tot." The last time we were all together, he called him by his real name.
10. He loved Jimmy Swaggart's music. As a child, this tortured me.
9. For many years, before I became "involved" in church and before my grandfather's health started to decline, I used to sit next to him in church during the 10:00 service, even when my mom didn't go. I loved the way he clapped. You think that when people get old, they lose their sense of rhythm...though he wasn't much of a dancer, he ALWAYS clapped on beat, in the cutest way. I'll always remember that.
8. He was our World War 2 Hero. You know I'm going to take it there, but I feel like Latinos don't get the recognition they deserve for their part in World War 2, especially those who were air-borne. For those of you who don't know, he was in the 8th Air Force and flew 27 missions in total, 20 in a B-24 and 7 in a B-17. He flew in the ball turret, the small ball under the plane. It may seem like no big deal but I've done research on that position for a college project, and the psychological pressure of being inside that rotating, plexi-glass ball for 8 hours, separated from the rest of the crew, was something that only a brave man could handle. A few years ago, I had the opportunity, thanks to my mother, to ride in a B-17 with him. It was the most beautiful experience, and I cried when I saw the actual size of the ball turret, knowing that my grandfather had fought for his country in such a small, inconvenient, and unconventional space. He told us that one time, a man in his crew had made fun of him, saying that anybody could fly in the ball. My Tot said that for that mission, they would trade places. After two minutes, the man was crying, wanting out. From that story, I learned that my Tot was never really confrontational. He let others make the fool of themselves.
7. In college, I used to go over their house every Friday. Though a large portion of our time was spent falling asleep, and then sleeping, I will always remember the conversations I had with my grandparents. Most of the time it was me practicing my Spanish with them, and them telling me how important it was to know Spanish, and then it turned into them nit-picking at one another. They were really "an old, married couple".
6. One of my favorite things to hear him say was, "Ay mija!" He would say this to either myself, my mom, or my Tia Becky.
5. He loved roller-coasters. He had to have been in his late 70's when all of the family was at Knott's Berry Farm. Believe it or not, he got on a roller coaster that went upside down, it would loop and twist going forward, and then loop and twist going backwards. To be honest, I was so scared, and he wasn't even trippin'. And having my almost 80 year old grandfather next to me, really drove home the fact that I was a little pansy.
4. He gave me his car. Before he handed over the keys, he asked me if he could sit in it one last time. I'll never forget that, especially because there was a small hint of sadness in his eyes. He drove everywhere, and handing over the keys was a huge shift in his life but I felt very grateful for his car, I named her "Sonador", which means "Dreamer".
3. I would take him grocery shopping every week. He was extremely nit-picky about my driving, and even more nit-picky about the prices. There was no such thing as going to one store. We went to at least 4 different stores because, "This place has this cheaper", and, "We'll go here because they have a deal on this". I tried to explain to him that with all of the gas we were using, the money would even out anyways. But, I failed to convince him.
2. Spending the night, I either slept with my Nani, or on the couch. Every single time, he brought out this old, fuzzy, thin, yet incredibly warm orange blanket. Nani and Tot taught me the importance of saying my prayers, the only thing was, Tot would pray for a really long time, and would always cry. I never understood why, until I got older, yet he would always pray for, "The hungry and the starving". My grandfather truly had a heart of gold.
1. He loved JESUS. He would tell anyone about JESUS. He would even try and witness to me, and I always felt like, "Hello, yes, I know, I'm a Christian, my dad's Pastor Mike, I get it." He believed in heaven, and he believed in hell. And he wasn't afraid to make things "awkward" and make it really clear that both existed. He truly stored up his treasures in heaven.
The hardest thing for me to see was him unable to talk. Having the ambulance come pick him up was a very hard thing to witness. Though I am a very emotional person, many times I like to avoid situations in fear of having to cry in front of people. I just remember seeing the flashing red lights in the shadows, knowing that he was on his final mission and knowing that after all of the "false alarms" over the years, he was in his final days.
I ask that you keep his wife in prayer. I saw on 02/12/13 what "til death do us part" really means. It was beautiful, it was scary, it was tangible. 70 years with someone is a really long time, and he loved her. He would still smile at her, roll his eyes occasionally, but he always had the look of infatuation in his eyes. They had been together since she was 13.
Before he died, I held his hand a couple of times, and he squeezed mine. You were an amazing Christian, man, father, grandfather, great grandfather, and friend. I will do my best to take care of Nani. I love you forever Pascual, you are the best example of what a grandfather should be. Til I meet you again.
