This was on my mind one day last semester as I left my college campus. I attend the local state college, Metro. I took a morning class that met at 7 a.m. and was in the Administration building at the corner of Fifth Street and Larimer Street. Once the class was over, I usually went straight to work. I always took the same way from school to work, traversing fifth street to Walnut Street, then seventh street to Auraria Parkway and into downtown. Downtown itself is a twisty maze of streets that can leave even a native lost.

But this one day, I needed to head home instead of downtown. I found myself at the corner of Fifth and Walnut contemplating my path. I certainly could turn right onto Walnut, making my way to Auraria Parkway and then Speer Boulevard and eventually I-25 north to my home. But I found my gaze wandering to the left side and saw how Walnut seem to meander underneath I-25. I found myself curious as to where the street went, if it were possible to get to I-25 north another way.

Without hesitation, I turned left, eager to find out exactly where this path traveled. At first, Walnut seemed as any other street and I wondered if I would be disappointed. But as I traveled under I-25, Walnut began to veer right and then left unexpectedly. I approached a crossing street and considered turning, but soon realized that might not be a wise choice as it seemed to be a deadend. Walnut continued on and veered yet again to the right and I saw a sign regarding I-25.

However, once I approached the sign, it proved to be interesting to decipher. Without much time to take in the sign, all I got from it was a reference to I-25 south, which was the opposite direction of my path. I moved on in hopes there was another highway entrance that would take me north. I soon reached another cross road, which seemed to say it was Colfax Ave. This befuddled me even more as I seemed nowhere near the Colfax Avenue I was familiar with; however, I could no longer continue on Walnut as it seemed to end when it connected with this new Colfax Avenue and my choice was either left or right.

I pondered turning left because I knew Federal Avenue was close – mayhap this new Colfax would take me to the safety of Federal and a street I knew so well. But once again my gaze traveled a different, unknown direction and I found myself turning right. Onto a road that was unfamiliar but strangely familiar all at once. I was close to what I remember as Mile High Stadium and a sense of deja vu crept up around me as I steered my car around the turns of the road.

I now saw the name of the road I traveled on was Mile High Stadium Circle and I felt relief at knowing I kind of knew where I was and yet it was unfamiliar enough that I also felt a strange excitement. The feelings of familiarity mixed with the sense of deja vu was such an invigorating experience. I then approached a stop sign. As I paused my vehicle at the sign, I glanced to the right, wondering if that was the right way to go.

As I looked down this road, I was suddenly hit with an intense wave of nostalgia as I realized I had been on this road more than once. As a child, my father would often take us to the games at Mile High Stadium. This road I was looking down was one that would take us onto I-25 north and on our way home.

I would watch my father drive from the passenger seat and admire his long, strong forearms as they steered the car around the tight curves of this road. I would imagine the power underneath his hands and how much control was required to use the wheel to steer this ton of metal. I would marvel at his finesse and wonder if I would one day, too, have that same ability. To so confidently manage a large vehicle like I imagined my father’s car to be.

I sat there in that present, for a moment lost in that past. The feeling of nostalgia swam around me in the air of my little shark and I basked in its presence. I felt a lump work its way up in my throat as I thought of my father. I then swallowed that lump as I turned right. I took each turn as I thought my father would do, remembering him each mile that I passed.

Two roads diverged in my path that day, and I – well I took the one less traveled by. And it made all the difference.*

*phrasephrased from the poem, The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost

I can’t believe another year is gone.  It has been 24 years since you died and so much has happened that you’ve missed.

Since you’ve been gone, four of your grandchildren were born and grew up.  Your oldest, Nicholas, is now married and lives in Avon, CO.  He is a responsible and disciplined boy, quiet and reserved but with the same sweet smile that used to bring you both such joy.  His brother, Matthew, was born just a few months after the accident.  How you both were so looking forward to his arrival.  He doesn’t let you down either.  Matthew has the biggest heart of all the Medinas and I”m pretty sure if you were here, he’d be mowing your lawn as we speak.  Your niece, Miranda, is next in age and what a beauty she turned out to be.  Every time I see her picture I see you, mommy.  The last one to come around is JJ and he was raised a Medina and you can tell, oh yes you can.

Since you’ve been gone, the family scattered a little but then recently has gotten closer again.  The family now meets once a month for breakfast, and I keep hoping more people will join each month.  I won’t give up! because I know, if you were both here, this family would be there come hell or high water.

Since you’ve been gone, your oldest son, Richard, passed away.  The many years before his passing were sad ones, and he was pretty much all alone because of the choices he made in his life.  But I can proudly report to you that he left this world at peace with the past and with the love and support of his brother and sister.  We all did right by him in the end and I think you’d be proud of our ability to mend old rifts.

Your other son, Joe, has divorced and is moving on with his life.  He’s a bit of a workaholic – the family doesn’t see him much.  He raised some fine children though.  His legacy will carry on.  Not only in their genes but also in the love these children have for their father.

Mom, your brothers and sisters remain close and think of you often.  All of them still live relatively close to each other.  They’ve kept the family home in Costilla.  Every year your brothers visit the home town and pay respect to you and dad on Memorial day.  Unlce Louie keeps your grave clean.

Their kids have also married and had children.  I keep close contact with Uncle Frank’s kids, since we are so close in age and grew up practically as brothers and sister.  Chris, or Kiko as we still call him, is married to a beautiful and firey red-head, Mandie, who is just perfect for him.   Together they have one girl, Madison, a lovely little girl.  Adam, Kiko’s brother, is all growed up and the college graduate of the family and a lawyer to boot.  Mom, dad if you know the trouble this boy caused as teenager!  And now he’s a lawyer.  He has two children of his own, Lauren and AJ.  And Keithy-boy, well he married the greatest woman ever (shout out to Hillary) and is the luckiest son of a gun for it.  Keith is also our heart of this family, though he is pretty quiet about it.

And then there is me.  I’m a good egg, mommy and daddy.  I work hard, pay my taxes, follow the rules (mostly) and I love as hard as I work.  I met a good man who makes an excellent partner, and we’ve carved out a life together that brings me such joy and happiness.  I love my family and friends and I’m truly happy.  Not all the time, but then who is… what I learned about life is you take the good with the bad, the hard times with the fun times.  It is what you make it and I intend to make it the best.  I miss you both so much but I’m blessed.  Know that much about me.

So much you’ve missed and so much we’ve missed without you.  I couldn’t let another year go by without letting you know.

With love and respect,

your daughter, Mon-Mon

Tonight, my cousin, K, called me to get my opinion on a gift that his wife thought of and that my family wants to carry out. They would like to get a “In Memory Of” dedication sign with my parents’ names placed at the scene of the accident.

I am moved to tears – and it takes a lot to make me cry. But these are tears of joy, not pain. It means a lot to me that my mother and father meant so much to my mom’s side of the family that they would consider this gift. I can’t think of a better way to honor my parents.

Thank you, K and H and the rest of the family for such a thoughtful gift. Thank you for remembering two wonderful people.

So what have I learned this year… hmmm…

1. From the Mexico trip: Partying 7 days in a row can be detrimental to your health so take a break in between if ya can (this may be related to getting older)
2. From school: You can get perfect scores on every homework assignment and not do well on the tests… what?
3. From work: If you want money to live, you have to go to work.
4. From my kitties: Kitties can get asthma… did you know this?
5. From my love life: You can feel happy when your lover is interested in someone else – poly folk call it compersion or frubble. I call it cool when it works.
6. From my love life: Having more than one love partner is exciting… fun… comforting… wonderful.
7. From traveling: First class is cool but business class on a huge plane is effen awesome.
8. From the past: I still think my ex is an awful person.
9. From the past: I can be an awful person too. They say the things you don’t like in a person are the things you don’t like in yourself. Wise words.
10. From my brother: Or maybe because of my brother – Forgiveness is better than holding on to past transgressions… especially if the person is remorseful. Holding onto bitterness out of some sense of being wronged is childish and petty.
11. From my past: Forgiveness is easy to give but moving on with the person you forgave is harder… most people can’t or won’t do it.
12. From life: When you get the true meaning of forgiveness and moving on, it heals so many other parts of your heart.
13. From life: Number 13 isn’t really unlucky.

I think the biggest thing I learned this year is #12. My parents died in a tragic accident when I was just 13 and for many, many years it defined who I was in many ways. Not just in how others viewed me but in how I viewed myself. And then I had this fight going on with my eldest brother that was a big part of my life even though we didn’t talk and I thought I was “over it.” Until I confronted my past with him and dealt with all of the issues between us, I couldn’t really heal from losing my parents. I couldn’t deal with the pain that brought because I wouldn’t deal with the issues between my brother and me. We couldn’t heal together (and with my other brother) because we couldn’t deal with what was between us.

I remember the anniversary of my parent’s death this year and what I remember most is how hard it wasn’t. Every year prior on that date, I was a mess – internally mostly but the pain and grief was so deep and still felt so new. But this year, while I missed them and felt the pain of their absence, it wasn’t crippling like it had been in the past. I attribute that to the mending of the riff between my brother and me. Long needed, long overdue, but just in time. A gift I gave to him, to myself, to my parents – to everyone in my life. I have an inner peace I think was missing for so long… probably tied into feelings of abandonment and loss I didn’t even know were present.

So that’s my biggest lesson of 2008 – how the sins of our past and our ability and willingness to deal with them directly and forgive those who trespass against us unintentionally, well that’s a better way to live – truly forgive not just give lip service until the next time that someone lets you down so you can use it against them in a moment of superiority conveniently forgetting all the wrongs you’ve done in your life. Better than wallowing decades long in anger, bitterness and regret. I’m 36 and I hope that lesson stays with me in the future.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you have a great last night of 2008 and I’ll see you in 2009!

His column is a personal journey, and he speaks from his point of view. At one point, he spoke poignantly about his wife’s relationship with her father, or lack thereof. And he states eloquently, “The few times (the wife’s father) has visited in the last 20 years has seemed to turn my wife back into the little girl that still hopes her daddy will be there.”

As I read this one line, I had the thought, Is this what I am going through with my eldest brother? The brother who I suddenly started speaking with after 17 years of silence. I was looking for the father figure I always wanted him to be.

I have two full-blood older brothers. The other brother is also older than me but in the middle. He is a good man. He has been there for me in ways no brother should have to be, and we share a bond that is deep. He was – is – my hero and role model.

But with that one line in that article, I realized what has attracted me most to this new relating with my eldest brother was the starting over. Maybe I’ve been looking for him to fulfill that promise he made me oh so many years ago.

Is is possible?

When my daddy died, his sister and her children cried. Even when his sister was so old she couldn’t remember anyone else, she cried for her Elias (my daddy’s name.)

When my daddy died, his wife’s brothers and sisters cried too. To this day, when my uncles speak about him, there is such respect and admiration in their voice that I am moved to tears.

When my daddy died, a big hole was left in the hearts of his five children. His older daughter visits his grave yearly, leaving flowers in memory of a father she didn’t get the chance to see very often in life. His three sons mourn for their father and I hope provide stability in the lives of their children as he seemed to do for them. And his younger daughter, well she grieves for the man she didn’t get to know.

I remember a man who would watch TV while he sat on his knees and ate peanut M&Ms without wearing his dentures. I remember a man who would grab at my mom’s breast, which would make her call out to him in an an exasperated but loving voice “Tata!” which was her nickname for him. I remember a man who would break out in song without reason and pull you into a dance with him.

I remember dancing with this man just once at a wedding, and he was a very good dancer. I remember a man who would play with my toes when I was sitting next to him. I remember a man who went out of his way for his family.

I remember a man who loved his family. He was a good man. I love you, daddy. Happy birthday.

Every year this day comes, and it feels like every other day. Therein lies the silent agony. Because with each day that comes, the same sense of loss and grief is present. It never really strengthens or lessens from day to day. It’s a sense I’ve come to recognize as a constant companion, like a lover you wake up to every morning always confident he or she will be right by your side.

I’m always amazed at how uncomfortable a loss like mine makes people – even for people who have known me for years. And so I rarely share this day with anyone, because I don’t like to make folks uncomfortable. So beyond the yearly call I get from my sister-in-law, in which I try to reminisce with her about people I can only barely recall, I am alone with my thoughts and sadness on this day.  I do remember my parents, but it is with the eyes of a 13 year-old. I was not a very enlightened 13 year-old either. It never dawned on me to take stock of who my parents were at that time. I was always more concerned with the cute boy in my class.

My mother called me from her trip the night before the accident. I will forever remember that she did so, since she called to say she loved me – a final, blessed gift I treasure more than anything I received before or since.  I will also forever remember the call that came through that Sunday morning twenty years ago mostly because I answered the phone. The adult voice on the other end asked to speak to another adult, and I casually told him my folks were due back from a road trip that very morning. I will forever remember the sound of anguish in my brother’s voice once he heard the news his “Oh, god no. Don’t tell me that,” will forever ring in my ears. As will the look on his face as he told me, “It’s just you and me now, Monica,” as I realized what the call meant. I will forever recall the tears I shed that entire morning and afternoon, until I was too numb to do anything at all.

But the specifics about my parents – that I cannot share on these pages. I can’t tell you what my mother’s favorite color was, nor can I tell you how my dad liked his coffee. I can’t tell you the story on how my folks met, nor can I share what they thought when each of their children were born. I can’t even tell you what shoe size my mom wore or if my dad liked to wear loafers. I just don’t know.

I can tell you that my parents were well loved by everyone they knew. They seemed to provide the support and stability within their own family structure, because when they died, that family structure crumbled like a house built out of deck of cards. Slowly over the years, it’s built back up. But the blow of my parents’ death was felt for quite a long time.

Especially to a 13 year-old girl, who went from the youngest and cherished child to an orphan in the span of seconds it took for my father’s car to drift across the center lane into the oncoming path of a van filled with a vacationing family from California. I think often of the impact of the two cars – the destructive violence that must have occurred at that moment. Just as often, I wonder if there was a deafening silence once the impact was over. How quiet it must have been as two people who shaped my world up until that moment passed from this earthly plane of existence.

And yet here I am.

Still able to breathe and live and love and grieve. That accident shaped the person who sits here typing these words that you read. All the pain, loss, sorrow – I suppose they made me stronger. Or so they tell me. I am a survivor. A title that always filled me with dread, but one I reluctantly carry because… well… it’s who I am.

We are all survivors in a way. So I will take this moment to share a silence with my fellow survivors and remember those who passed away.

And I will grieve still.