AN AMARYLLIS FOR AMARILYS

              
                AN AMARYLLIS FOR AMARILYS                From Memoir, A Dot In Time

                                                                            
                                                      An Amaryllis For Amarilys
                 

                          

           He blew into the demitasse and then sipped his cafecito. He liked it hot. I made sure it was. He took his cap off ... the cap that teamed so well with his peppered moustache to make him look like a Greek sailor, a captain of his ship.

           He brought me two packages. The bigger box he wanted me to open  the next day. The day of my birth. The other smaller one he said to open that day. Inside that one maybe, the answer to my inner question every year? Did my father remember?

           I came to sit with him at the kitchen table. Both of us drinking our coffee a bit fast in contrast with the conversation that usually began like the trickling of a melting stream.

         On occasion he would give me the blessing, that crown on my head, that I would wear joyfully for days. "With you I want to talk. Let me tell you...." Then he would go on to share about what troubled him. In many occasions after he finished his coffee one corner of his mouth would lift and be pinned up for a few seconds, like the first part of a piece of clothing one used to hang up on  clotheslines.  I knew then I'd soon be transported into my father's memory. 

         Themes ran into one another in some of these conversations. Loose wild animals seeking shelter. The poverty of his family when he was a boy, the difficulty of  immigration to a new land, the loss of respect and discrimination he experienced in some of  his jobs because of his nationality ... secret trauma he kept buried.

         I sat quietly, my heart, like a net catching his memories, sensing the sacredness of invitation into his sanctum. Usually, in the midst of his deepest reflections, he would look at his watch and say, "Your mother home soon. Gotta cook."  He would gather his cap with a swift jerk and fold his emotions away in the same way. In those times I moved  also in a whirlwind, catching him before he left.  Kissing him. Feeling the rough edges of  his day old beard.

           "There's an amaryllis bulb in there. Better open it."

           "An amaryllis? You remembered."

           "Sí. An amaryllis for Amarilys." 

                                                                (for my father, Tomas Gacio  1920-1990)

   

                   For A Very Loving Friend

             She came into Panera's with a bag full of presents.

             "Open this one first," she said.

              I stared at the box. The shape seemed familiar.

              "You told me the story about your dad. How he brought you ..."

              I ripped the paper and looked inside. An amaryllis bulb.

             "It's from your dad," she said.

             "An amaryllis for Amarilys," I said.

              I held back the tears. "Thank you, Maria."

              The Greek sailor ... still talking.

                
                                                                                         

                                                                                                   amaryllis photo by Lilja Taylor