A Dog’s Funeral
My perception of the first man I loved
I have only a few fond memories with my dad. We spent short moments together, almost like flashes throughout my life. I like to tell myself that quality over quantity is the way to go. The moments are all less than thirty minutes long. However, those times together stirred my emotions and stayed imprinted in my brain, like visiting a restaurant with only a few items on the menu. Whether it tastes incredible or awful, the food tends to be more memorable because there isn’t much to focus on. Those moments have formulated my perception of my father.
Despite the occasion, his eyes have always had sad expressions. Sometimes, his eyes express a combination of anger and sadness. Other times, they seem filled with sorrow and defeat, as if he married the most traumatizing events of his life. He thinks he is winning his battle against those traumas if he is always enraged. But when he is tired of being enraged, he is vulnerable, and I can see defeat and sorrow in his eyes. Either way, he is losing.
My dad would always wake up early, smoke, walk to my aunt’s house, and have coffee. Our house was the last in a long entryway that passed two other homes on the right side, a mango and guava tree, and a quarter of an acre of yuca crops on the left-hand side.
As a routine, I sat on the front porch to wait for my dad and have breakfast together. Sometimes he would be back for breakfast. Other times he would be back later that day, in a week, or even months. My dad has a soft spot for stray dogs. One morning, when I was six, he brought home this adorable mixed-breed puppy he found on the side of the road. For a stray, he was surprisingly chubby. My dad would sit on the front porch and enjoy watching my sisters and me play and run away from the puppy.
A few weeks later, my dad came back for breakfast. I sat on the front porch, watching him walk the long entryway holding our puppy. The expression in his eyes didn’t tell me anything new. Yet when something is wrong, his mouth does this flat-line thing that forces out his dimples. I waited till he was close enough. I always felt I needed to read his mood to approach him.
I asked him, “What happened?” He tells me in a cracking voice, “He ate something bad.” He didn’t want to tell his six-year-old daughter her puppy got hit by a car. We sat silently for a long time before we took him between the yuca crops and the guava tree. We dug a hole, and my dad gently laid our puppy in it. We stood there for a few minutes. He didn’t say anything. It was almost lunchtime. This is the most prolonged moment I recollect bonding with my dad.
My father had four siblings. When he was six, his father left and never looked back. They grew up in country culture, where having male figures around is adored. My father and his little brother became inseparable in a household full of females. They played the protectors of their home and formulated their own concept of a what father figure should be. When my father was twenty-six his little brother was beaten to death by a local gang.
It has always haunted my father that he was not there to save the little boy who admired and looked up to him as his protector. He lives in a constant emotional battle with himself and others—a conflictive relationship between sadness and anger. I can't help but think my dad was meant for great things. My father would have been a great man if life had served him different cards.
