Happy Birthday, Papa Moxie!

Today is Papa Moxie's birthday. This makes him a cancer. Ironically, he died of cancer. He would have been....I dunno, 70? 69? I can't remember. The ages of my parents are some sort of mathematical equation that I never bothered to figure out, sorta like long division.

I have few, but precious memories of Papa Moxie. This is because he was so busy cutting the games that he didn't have time to create precious memories with his favorite child. In fact, I feel as thought I have more moments shared with Papa Moxie when I was holding him in a seal tight box during my journey to return him to his homeland than I do when he was alive.

Somehow it became my right, honor, and duty to return PM to the waters of the Atlantic. Lake Erie--to him at least--was not real water. It was a fake substitute for the vastness of the ocean. I used to think he was exaggerating when he would talk about "the ocean back home". Then I got there. I was lucky to stand in the same place where his childhood home stood. It was a beach. An actual beach. There were dingy row boats lined up on the shore. And where the house was, stood nothing but sand. The house--I was told--was actually open on one side on the first floor or something. So that, you literally turned and the beach was right there. So when he would talk about the oceans and all the swimming he would do every day, he wasn't bullshitting.

Picture it....Arroyo, November 2006. It was the one year anniversary of PM's death. I finally was able to go back to PR and spread his ashes. I had the assistance of my ex-girlfriend who grew up there and she accompanied me to his hometown. I wore this white, linen dress for the occasion. PM didn't wear much black and it would have been hot as hell, so a white dress it was for the "funeral". We read some appropriate passages from the Bible and then I opened the box and dumped out the contents. Papa Moxie was home again. In the water....despite the wind blowing some of him back against my feet. And for the record, he was heavy. You always think about ashes being lightweight, but I guess condensed bone and flesh of an adult male should be heavy.

I scoop up some sand from the shore (which grossed me out because it's nature and all and the water has a funny smell to me...all watery and natural) and put it in the box. I keep just sprinkles of his ashes in the bag inside the box and now it's mixed with the sand. Symbolism, I guess. There are people fishing farther down. Wading in the waters. Some of them look at me and my ex like we're taking part in some santeria ritual. We were wearing all white, which is what santeros wear. And we were Black, which is what santeros are.

The sun was shining and it was relatively quiet. PM liked quiet. It was sometime in the afternoon. I stood there for what felt like forever in the sun. The water was so warm and I let the waves lap around my feet. Random ocean debris floated past me, touching my toes. At first I was creeped out. Then I remembered that my fear of the "creepy ocean" annoyed the hell out of PM because he loved it so much, he expected the same of me. I still don't know how to swim. So I stood there as my dress started to get wet along the bottom. Holding the box. For a brief, brief moment, I wanted to swim....follow the water as it coaxed the ashes from the shore. My ex kept telling me I had to go in farther so that the ashes could be swept away. But I was actually afraid. The ocean looks to have no end. There was nothing for me to grasp. I would drown. I finally let go and moved further in. I don't know if it was the fact that was surrounded by water and my father's remains, or fear or both, but I started to cry. The kind of crying that feels good. Mourning crying that comes from knowing that it's finally all over. The sickness, the death and the return. Hospice, cremation, flight to PR and then, ocean. That is all Papa waited for in those final days, was the ocean. He talked about it a little with me...in some ways to remind me that he expected me to get this job done.

I had always got the little things wrong in his opinion. The way I wore my hair. The job I chose. The way I completed a chore. But he trusted me to bring him back home. In the big picture, I got something right, but he'd be damned to tell me so. He told my mother instead and she told me. "Your father told the doctor today that you're the only child he has. He talked about how proud he was of you." Then she would cry all over again. That was the doctor visit when they told him that wasn't anything they could do for him.

After some moments, we departed from the beach. From there, I met my cousin (PM's favorite niece) and ate dinner. We had never met before, but we had heard of each other. We talked as I guess two women would who were related, but lived isolated from each other for decades. Then she took us on a tour of his hometown. She had all sorts of stories; she was the ultimate tour guide. She took us to PM's birth home and not to far across from it was this dilapidated old house. She walks up to it and calls out in Spanish for someone. Our uncle walks out. Papa's youngest brother.

This all happens in a weird sequence: she is calling out for him and she walks to the other side of the house to look for him because she doesn't get an answer. My ex and I are standing there in the front waiting. He comes out the front door and misses my cousin. He stares at us as if we were the ones who called him. It was scary-strange for a lack of a better word. The man standing in front of me was Papa Moxie. He was a gruff older man wearing a tattered shirt that looked to be older than me, shorts, socks and sandals. After taking him all in, I realized (and accepted) that my father's strange fashion sense was cultural and familial. He had the same color, eyes and hair as my father. He was just taller and skinnier.

He frowned, using the same forehead muscles that run in the family. Frowns so deep that the creases are there even when you don't frown. My father had a tattoo on his back of my grandmother and she had the same frown. The tat on his back included the frowns! He looks at us and in Spanish goes, "Who the hell are you? My Puerto Rican (which is different than Spanish, I swear) is rusty, but I know confrontation when I see it. I just blink and my ex goes into this dialogue with him about why we're here. Sometime during this, my cousin managed to come back out front. She gently introduces us. So there was me and my uncle facing each other, flanked by my cousin and my ex. He stares (down sorta) at me and says, "Where is my brother?" And I don't think I was still carrying the box at this point, so instead I look towards the water and point. He follows my gesture and then his eyes return to me. He asks me why I put his older brother out there and not in the family plot.

By this point, I am annoyed at him. Annoyed (not surprisingly) like I would get with my father when he spared no pretense. So in meeting Tio Moxie for the first time, I have been asked for identification and the whereabouts of my father. Oh, I'm fine, Tio, thanks for asking. I calmly assert that PM wanted no part of the family plot and that he insisted on his ashes being spread in the water. I certainly wouldn't let him down simply to please a family he didn't even like and one I didn't even know.

I frown the family frown. Then he takes a step back, crosses his arms and asks my cousin where I have been all this time. And by "all this time" he meant the past 24 years. I was peeved that he was now talking about me in front of me, but then I realized that my Spanish annoyed him. I sounded in Spanish like my father sounded in English. Maybe a little worse. Prima Moxie knows the answer is a long one and instead suggests that they show me around. So he goes inside--he first asks her where the food she promised to bring was--and comes back out a few minutes later dressed in pants and the same shirt. And a hat. Again: that family fashion sense.

He starts walking towards the water and tells me about how he and his older brothers grew up. And how my father went to the States to work and later sent money back home so that Tio Moxie could come to New York with him.

Papa Moxie never spoke to me about Tio Moxie. He never really talked about my cousin. Hell, he barely spoke to me. But I knew everything there was to know about Papa Moxie and Tio Moxie just from that little piece of information. PM worked hard and that is how he expressed himself: through hard work. And he just sent the money. There was no expressive conversations about how he missed his little brother. No. Work. Send money. And you join me and work hard, too.

That was Papa Moxie love. Get a damn job.

Tio Moxie also proved that my father came from a place where love--while existent--manifested itself in raw, rare occasions. I say this because as we bid him adieu to explore more parts of the town, he said to me, "Many blessing to you and may you return sooner rather than later." I'm not even sure he hugged me, let alone shook my hand. He just parted and returned into the house.

Kind of like Papa Moxie. Not many words, but when spoken they were memorable, and then he left us and returned home.

Happy Birthday.