I was just on MapQuest, and y'know how they have that Aerial View of their maps? The one where you actually see a bird's eye view photographs of your city (if you're lucky)... well, I was looking up areas where I used to live, where I've grown up... and that inevitably led me to of course go look at my dad's old house.

I couldn't find it. (The pictures were way old.) It broke my heart. And I gloomily trailed off with my mouse over to his new home, at the cemetary. The pictures of that were way old too, so the portion of the land where my father's grave is now hadn't even become part of the cemetary yet. But I knew the exact spot on those images where he lies now. I felt this weight over me, and I'm crushed.

I don't think this pain will ever go away. And I hate it. I try to move on, be a happy person, for his sake at least, but I can't! I could mourn him forever. And even though I go through the motions of day-to-day life: work, eat, more work, shower, sleep, more and more work... I feel I can't even be home without crying now. I'm such a mope-rag right now, and that pisses me off. It upsets me that I can't be happy like I used to anymore. And I still remember his voice... and I wanna call him. Sometimes, when I'm calling 'Ama on the cell that used to be his, I pretend I'm dialing him instead of her. And as I hear the phone ring, I go over in my head the way he'd answer, the sound of his rough voice, sometimes with his drunk buddies in the background, like white noise. "�Hola, Papi! �Como estas?"
"�Hola, amor! �Como has estado?" (he'd reply.)
"Bien, Papi, �y t�?"
"Bien, tambien. Aqu� con estos cabrones..."

And we'd trail off into idle conversation.

I can't have that anymore, do you understand? It hurts so much and I can't shake myself out of this emotion. I feel so raw. And it's because we're all alone here, 'Ama and I. Despite the fact I have my sister, I still feel slightly detatched from her existance. I mean, she's all the fuck away over in El Paso, and she's got her own family now. (For better or for worse, they say.) And when she moved out to Virginia, way back when (three years ago? Really? It seems longer.), my parents and I became even closer still. I learned to cherish them as people, as my friends, my closest friends in a world so familiar yet so strange and paralyzing at times. The arguments weren't as much, because it was Dud and Pifas that didn't get along. With them far from each other, we could focus on getting to know one another better. My parents are all I have in this world. Now 'Apa's gone, and my world shrunk in half. I only have her now, and I'm filled with this unnerving dread that I'll lose her too. You need to understand, I don't have any friends. I'm very hard to befriend. I expect too much out of people, I guess. Mom's fault, I like to say. She taught me to value myself very highly (even more so after the discovery of my multiplicity, but I did that on my own). She's always been my sense of reliability, even to the point of stagnation. She doesn't appreciate change, for good or ill, but she gives sound advice, and is always there for me. I'm a lot like her. People could say we're, well, boring. 'Apa? *laugh* He was what kept my life interesting, full of color. He kept me from staying boring. He was spontaneous, didn't give a damn about money, loved new adventures in strange places, and had a great sense of humor. He was the kind of person you'd want to get lost somewhere with (and I did, on several occasions). He was always ready to poke fun at a situation, and he was always telling jokes, even if it was the same ones over and over. It was hard for me, seeing him deteriorate into a helpless nothing, but it's worse for me now. Because even as a disabled lump of flesh he still laughed. Yes, he'd complain, and bitch about the food, and I did have to help him take a crap and shower and whatnot, but he was alive. He acted alive, is what I mean. Always that light in his eyes, always shrugging life off in that "oh, what the hell?" manner of his. Always cursing and blessing people in the same breath. The last thing he told me (coherantly) on the day he died was: "Que Dios te bendiga."