For the last thirty years my sisters and I have developed a sort of refined tradition where we wake up early morning, rush to the grocery store, and buy whatever flowers, balloons, and birthday cards we can gather. We search the bakery section for a cake that might have the already imprinted letters of "happy birthday," pickup starbucks or make some coffee and blast into the journey of waking up our beloved family member to "surprize" them with our bday wishes and gifts :)
I put surprize under quotations because frankly, after doing this year after year, most of us 'know' to lie and bed, waiting patiently for everyone to arrive, we keep our eyes closed pretending to be asleep and then try with our best acting faces to look unaware and unexpecting...
Well today, March 4th, 2011, is officially my father's 50th birthday!!
But, sadly, it is also the first year that i was unable to make it to wake him up :'(
I don't know how others feel about birthdays, but in our family...they are HUGE deals! and living in Tucson, last year in Bisbee, it has been extremely tough to keep our family tradition alive. Needless to say..i'm a bit bummed about it...i love my dad sooo much!
I still remember being 9 years old and trying to orchestrate with my sisters the order in which we were going to enter my parents bedroom. I would carry the cake, yesica might have carried our gift and jazmin the balloons and flowers, little Emmy would follow behind us with his own handmade bday card...
It didnt matter how tired we were, or how much sleep we had, we had to wake up every year on that birthday morning, and do this...
sometimes we would play a special song in the background, other times we would make WAY too much noise, most of the time one of us would argue with each other "shut up stupid, go get the cake idiot..." etc. but you know these are our memories. Our family, like most, or like all is far from perfect, but we love each other like crazy, and no matter how many years go by, no matter how different our lives have become, no matter how much we all have changed, no matter where we live, I KNOW that every birthday morning, our hearts are not with us, our hearts wake up next to that person, that one person that we love so deeply, that person in our FAMILIA.
TE AMO PAPA.
sucede que tu amor es como el viento, como el aire que respiro
nunca nos damos cuanta de lo que siempre hemos tenido
como un pajaro
que acaba de nacer
sus alas se estrechan
y aprende pronto a volar
bajo del siempre el ha estado
en silencio y en fortaleza
sosteniendole sus suenos
apoyandole sus alas
bajo sombra del ayer
sin reprochos
tu me amas
y me ensenaste a levantarme
cuando torpe yo cai
tu promesa
la has mantenido
siempre a mi lado,
ha estado un viento,
un aire,
un amigo,
un hombre,
mi papa.
ahora yo...
te dedico una promesa
que no importa el tiempo, ni la distancia
aunque mi cuerpo estubiera ausente
mi corazon siempre estara
junto de ti.levantandote cada manana
como los pajaros
que tanto cantancon su ruido,
yo estare.y que recuerdes siempre,
nuestros viajes a celaya,nuestros recuerdos
las alegrias y peleas
nuestros triunfos y dolores
que sigamos siempre, asi
queriendonos
cada
dia
mas...
