Puro Delly

Delly was larger than life. He could fill a room with his booming voice and infectious love of a good time. He did everything to music: drove long distance to Florida, vacuumed the living room on Sunday mornings, painted an empty house, you name it. With him, it was always a party, and everyone was invited. And in the same breath, he was impossible. A stubborn know-it-all who could argue you to the death. He never let me win at checkers or any game, for that matter, and it was always an unspoken competition to see who could unravel the plot of a book, movie, or tv show first. Yeah, big June Gemini energy (We’re looking at you, Louis!).

In a tribute, my big cousin Justin described my dad as one of the cornerstones of our family. Obviously a star in my universe, I don’t think I ever really thought about him in our familial pecking order until that very moment. It was then that I really started to understand just how much he meant to not just me, but everyone. And so I write this for all of us…

My father was chosen. He was the smartest, most charismatic person I’ve ever known. Dead smack in the middle of Nelisa’s boys, he had memories of home and family in abundance, and would learn all that a new life in the States could hold. By the time I emerged on the scene, he had all the ’80s could offer a child immigrant with college experience: a vision for my grandfather’s small business, a cute little nuclear family nestled into his larger, louder tribe, and the makings of a little real estate nest egg in his new hometown.

This is in no way a biography, nor is this my story to tell in full, but life is hard. Ego is real. Pressure is always mounting. And at some point, my dad simply stopped showing up. At first he stopped showing up for himself, and then he stopped showing up for the rest of us. By the time cancer took him, Delly was broken, being haunted by the man he never truly figured out how to be.

Now I’ve been studying this man for years, trying to figure out what changed and when. Was it a bunch of little disappointments or one sweeping blow? And while that answer still keeps me up some nights, it wasn’t until I was sieving through photos ahead of his funeral, that I started to notice how my dad’s personality had in fact changed over time.

Teenage Delly, captured in photos from the 1970s, appeared quiet and pensive, plotting even. I found countless photos from the ’80s and ’90s that caught him yelling, with his arms outstretched, just as the pictures were being snapped, clearly overjoyed. But by the new millennium he started smizing in photos, giving this really smoldering eye. Don’t get me wrong, he was killing it, but there was a seriousness, a sadness there. Life had clearly weathered him.

So what’s the lesson here?

Well, if Delly was chosen, then so am I. So are you. And while that’s a heavy fucking load, I find comfort in knowing that it comes with endless opportunity to show up for myself in a way my father just couldn’t seem to. I will show up for me, so I can show up for you, smiling in every photo!