I also have a life

he left today, ... I leave you for a few days ... I will read your messages when I return.

That day, at the airport we had to take him in an indolent wheelchair, his sad look denoted an aging to which he was subjected for three weeks, his hug broke my soul, accustomed to bear grips with which I suspended up to fifty centimeters and I turned around in merry-go-round. On this occasion he barely brought me close to his body, squeezed my shoulder blades with his hands and cracked a sigh filled with distant hope.

"We will meet again," he said.

Everything happened suddenly, one day, he woke up convulsing; his left arm and leg contracted like that 22 rifle and the sign on his face appearing to suggest a facial effusion. My sister, with the help of a taxi driver, carried him on the shoulders to the evangelical hospital of Siguatepeque, where they kept him under control for three weeks, during which time he lost nerve control over his legs.

"I can lift my legs," he said. But when I put the sole of my foot I feel a tingling as if I had fallen asleep, which softens my knees.

It was a brain tumor that attacked his brain, at seventy-eight he remembered then that when he was young he suffered from a dry hand, he also mentioned certain numbnesses that came from time to time, and a series of sparks that he saw in some days when the balance seemed to leave him. However, he lived with this all his life, his strength in towing a cow, boiling a calf or carrying a quintal of mezcal never allowed him to be distracted by the latent threat that was in his brain; then the twenty years he was in the United States, with a “social security” that controlled his triglycerides and the ease of light work slept the threat until he returned to the tropical lands, where he eats normal beans and goes to the doctor only emergency .

Few times in life do you imagine that the time of being with your father will be shortened in a sigh, every memory of his hugs ring you deeply before the possibility of moving forward on the journey to which no one has escape. Perhaps the feeling of having enjoyed the few moments that were close and the many that were present in the distance produces a peace of mind for the decisions of the creator, and although there is the possibility that he should wait for us for longer, you aspire to recover with all conviction.

Life is that short, it seems like yesterday when he taught me to divide by two figures, when he taught me to swim in the round pose, when he gave me twenty cents for Pliny, when we both cried silently before the stage of twelve Years of Farabundo Martí, I can remember that day so fresh, starting snakes after ten years of having left, we arrived at the house where we were born, with the Matapalo eating the palm trees. I can thank you for those moments when we sat on a stone, on the hill of Zatoca, in the north of El Salvador; a couple of fat tortillas like the guanacos, chopped egg, chilipuco beans and curd salted in lump to the deception of our hunger, while for two days he dedicated himself to show me every boundary of the properties at a leisurely pace that every half kilometer stopped in the stories of always; the tongue sharpener in the ravine, the Chilica in the meetings, the vessel in the corner of Judas, the skunk that urinated his face. I could tell them again a thousand times, I would still enjoy them like the first time; This is how the tradition of telling stories in prose with two out of three lines inherited in the same cruel humor of their laughter.

For now, I keep each of his stories deep in my soul, eventually I send him an email that they may read, although they surely translate it to what they think he wants to hear in the absence of our confidence style to which One day we arrived. It is not possible to speak to him, if he did, the good humor he taught me would lead me to tell him things in the only way we always speak, in cruel prose.

- Hello sir, tell me why they don't cut off your head. - Then we would have a laugh just like that day in the park, when he told me in the same way. - You so weak, how you can reach those crippled companions, does not seem to have reached a calf three days old.

While he waits to see what our maker decides, I hope to give him another hug. Impotence, distance and waiting for the ninth chemotherapy is terrible.

—Update— Julio 2007
This week he returned after 9 months in the United States, he did not lose his hair with the chemo, he is healthy and in a good mood to enjoy his days here in Siguatepeque, Honduras ... thanks for your prayers.

—Update— July 23 2008
He left today.