Charlie Kirk: A Personal Reflection

1993-2025

These have been two hard weeks for me. I have had to replace all four tires one week, then replace the kitchen faucet the next week. The little that I have in savings is fast depleting. I had my-now former best friend ignore me for two weeks straight while we worked at the same location. Not a word, not a greeting, not an invite to lunch or breakfast, not a hello, not a goodbye. All these stressors caused me to miss part of my very high minimum payments, which I figure will increase. That, in turn, will increase my already heavy financial burden. I felt overwhelmed, distressed and depressed. I felt almost cruelly tested by God, forever attempting to show that I trusted Him by enduring harder and harder tests.

Then, the sight of a man, younger than myself, shot in the neck, blood gushing frenziedly, for holding an open-air debate, served as a terrible reminder that my troubles are in the long run, bearable. 

Charlie Kirk's assassination is monstrous. It is evil. It is damnable, and damn anyone who celebrates or condones his murder. Full stop. 

I saw the initial video, and it will shake me to my very core for however long I live. The details are in my mind: him putting the microphone down, the pop, the hole in his neck, the blood...dear God, the blood, the keeling over to the left. I cannot begin to imagine the total horror of his final moments. 

He expected yesterday to be a perhaps mocking back-and-forth between those who disagreed with his various views and himself. No one expects a particular day to be their last day, especially if you are as young as he was. I also figure that he was not expecting to be murdered before thousands for debating those who disagreed with him.

Everything about this horror distresses me: the crime itself, the celebratory nature among some who insist that "kindness matters", the ease to which violence is seen as justified because of disagreements. It is all so cruel, so evil, so terribly disheartening to me. However, I think of what Charlie Kirk was doing when someone shot him down. He was participating in something as old, if not older than, the Republic itself: asking and answering questions in a free and open exchange of ideas. 

Whether one agreed or disagreed with Charlie Kirk is unimportant. Whatever his views, he had the right to express and share them. He had the right to create an organization to promote those views (Turning Point USA). He had that First Amendment "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".

Charlie Kirk's assassination is counter to that vital right. We, as a nation and as a society, cannot tolerate, cannot accept, cannot endorse a culture where people can feel justified in killing those who hold different points of view.

Sadly, the warning signs that some believe a bullet should settle all debate have been there for many years. 

I go to the Congressional baseball team shooting in 2017, where someone attempted a mass assassination of Republican Congressmen because of their politics. 

I go to the idolization, at times literal, of Luigi Mangione after his arrest, charged with assassinating United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione was not condemned in certain circles for allegedly shooting a man in the back, murdering him in cold blood. He was, instead, feted and declared a "thirst trap". 

I go to the attempted assassination of then-former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. Had he not moved his head a few inches, we would have seen a former President and presidential candidate murdered before our eyes. Lest we forget, one man, Corey Comperatore, was murdered in the attempted assassination.

I go, now, today, to the slaughter of another man who was murdered for disagreeing with others and having people defend their views to him publicly in an open forum.

Each of these attempted or committed murders has a common denominator: the demonic belief that one can, perhaps should, kill those whose views you find more than objectionable. That oft-used phrase of "violence is not the answer" remains true. A free and open exchange of ideas cannot exist if any side decides that they have the power to execute whomever it disagrees with. That is terrorism. That is fascism. That is not what any American, on the Left or Right, can accept, support, endorse or celebrate.

Did I agree with Charlie Kirk? Did I find him and/or his views distasteful? I will not tell you, because my personal views about his political views do not shape my horror and anguish at his murder. I would feel the same if this had happened to Brian Tyler Cohen, a liberal commentator who is of Kirk's generation. I cannot find it in my heart or soul to think that killing your political opponents is right or moral on any level.

My heart breaks that anyone would think that such a thing would be right or moral on any level.

Politics is not my life. I vote on a regular basis. I have voted for Democrats and Republicans. I have my views, which are not uniform with one political party or another. I have criticized and ridiculed both sides. I have, at times, been appalled at some of what I hear from our political leaders and commentators. In all that, however, not once have I ever thought that those who disagreed with me should be exterminated. That anyone would think such a thing fills me, not with dread but with despair.

We cannot, we must not, kill those whose views are not like our own. No matter how odious you find those views, no matter how opposed you are to those views, committing murder does not make you heroic. It makes you satanic. Moreover, we cannot, we must not, justify or celebrate those who commit murder of political opponents. 

Charlie Kirk was murdered. We cannot celebrate murder. If we are not allowed to speak freely because someone believes that he or she has the right, if not duty, to kill us for openly holding a different viewpoint, we do not live in a free society but in a terror state. 

We never know if this day will be our last. We are today remembering that twenty-four years ago, so many were living their last day. Charlie Kirk did not know that yesterday, September 10, 2025, would be his last day of life. As I reflect on the horrors of yesterday, and remember the horrors of September 11, 2001, I remind myself to cherish those whom I love and that a late payment is not the end of the world. 

I close with this. Contrary to what some of my online compatriots say, I am not old enough to have been Charlie Kirk's father. True, I am much older than he was. As such, I have seen all sorts of terrible things. I never thought or imagined that I would live to see the political assassination of an activist, let alone an assassination that people dance to. It pains me beyond measure to see his birth and death date so close. I feel so much pain for his widow, his children, and his parents whom I presume are still alive. 

My deepest condolences to all of them.

Olivia de Havilland: A Personal Remembrance

1916-2020

This piece is in the spirit of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon sponsored by Journeys in Classic Film. Today's star is the late Olivia de Havilland, replacing original Summer Under the Stars player Bette Davis.

2020 has been perhaps the worst year in human history. There's been the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected every single person on Earth. Hundreds of thousands dead, millions without jobs, many without hope. Economies crashing, paranoia over the disease making people behave irrationally: everything from physically assaulting those who wear masks to those who insist on wearing two masks while driving alone.

The world, particularly the United States, is additionally in tumult after the slaying of George Floyd triggered mass protests that devolved to riots, looting and mayhem. Everything from tearing down statues and burning down buildings public and private to again people attacking others in violent acts. An election where neither candidate inspires anything close to confidence that the Republic will be in safe hands.

On a personal level, there is the simultaneous loss of my job and my Mother, both of whom I loved dearly. I don't know what it says about the City of El Paso that I have greater hope of seeing my late mother than of ever seeing my old job again.

Into this came the news of the death of Olivia de Havilland, whom many called "the last star". We had grown so used to seeing stories of her indomitable will and strength that it seemed she would go on forever. Yet, her passing at the extraordinary age of 104 quietly in her sleep still seemed a shock, and seems to punctuate what an awful, awful year 2020 has been.

What can I say about Dame Olivia that has not already been said? 

Was she a great actress? Yes: five time Oscar nominee, two-time winner. She seemed to specialize in elegant women, outwardly demure but with iron wills, in a way a reflection of de Havilland herself. Her most famous role was as Melanie Wilkes, the gentle and genteel flower who saw goodness in the wicked Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. Despite Melanie's physical fragility, she had internal strength that made her in her own way a survivor, and in some ways stronger and more courageous than those around her. 

More than one person has pointed out the irony that her character is the only one who died in the film but the actress herself outlived all the principle characters and almost every credited cast member.

Her screen pairing with Errol Flynn is among the greatest of screen duos, the woman forever enthralled with the dashing, daring swashbuckler with her being my definitive Maid Marian in The Adventures of Robin Hood.   

For myself, I think her single greatest performance, indeed one of the greatest performances in film history, was for her second Best Actress win in The Heiress. As the lovelorn wallflower who discovers her own strength, it is a brilliant performance: in turns heartbreaking and chilling. She will not be made a fool twice over no matter if it means closing the door on a semblance of romance.

She could play elegant, sophisticate, traumatic (as in The Snake Pit), wicked (Hush, Hush...Sweet Charlotte) and even a touch of comedy (such as Princess O'Rourke). In the whole of her career, the only time I think she made a misstep was with Lady in a Cage, but bless her for trying.

Olivia de Havilland should be remembered as a great actress, something she sought out to do. However, I think she should also and equally be remembered for her great courage. At the time when she and other Golden Age stars were working, the studios held a firm grip on their players. Every time an actor/actress was suspended for refusing work they thought detrimental to their career, the studios would tack on the suspended time to their original contract. In essence, this forced an actor to work past his/her original contract.

De Havilland refused to accept this, and made the bold step to sue her studio, Warner Brothers. If she had lost this case, it would have meant the end of her career, as she would have been either forced to return in disgrace to Warner Brothers to accept whatever poor scripts they gave her or being blackballed by the industry. She risked everything to do what she thought was right against incredible odds.

A year later, the court ruled in her favor, and the "De Havilland Decision" freed performers in an almost literal sense. The massive contracts stars have now, the lack of control a studio or corporation has over said star all stems from de Havilland's courageous step in fighting the studio.

Maybe it is coincidence that the first film she made after the Decision, To Each His Own, won de Havilland her first Best Actress Oscar, maybe not.

If there were any shadows in de Havilland's life it was the tortured relationship with her sister, Joan Fontaine. How much of the fabled feud was studio press and how much of it was genuine hatred only they knew. Probably even after both de Havilland and Fontaine have died we will never know.

She certainly would not want this story featured on any future series of Feud. The (so-far) only season of that series, chronicling the rivalry of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis enraged de Havilland, the sole living figure portrayed in the series. While her lawsuit against Feud creator Ryan Murphy ultimately failed, it's a credit to her fierce strength that she, even at 101, would not allow what she thought was wrong to get a pass.

She could have retained a restrained silence on the matter, but Dame Olivia was not amused, and she wasn't going to sit quietly.

Personally, I find it a tragedy if de Havilland and Fontaine never seemed to have settled their differences. I understand that families drift apart and that relatives can end up despising each other. I can't help think however, of my own family. My mother Socorro had six siblings but when she died she had only one: her older sister Alicia. They had had a strained relationship for many years, not unlike Olivia and Joan. Eventually, Mom made that step to reach out, and the last three to five years were content ones for both.

Yes, they would quarrel from time to time, hang up on each other and tell their children they'd never speak to each other again. The children by now would all roll their eyes, knowing that within a week they'd begin speaking and pick up where they left off. Now my Tia Alicia is the last living sibling, with no one left to remember with her. I cannot begin to think what de Havilland thought or felt, but if it is close to what my Aunt has shown in deed (she is not one for words), it would be a sad, quiet resignation and an internal sense of loss with the memory of love and an acceptance that our own deaths along with those we love comes at the Lord's choosing. I imagine those that outlive and survive continue on, knowing that death, while a permanent shadow, is not the focus of life. 

Olivia de Havilland had strength of will and character, an immense courage in her profession and an extraordinary talent. She will be remembered by all who love film for as long as people see film. Yes, 2020 has been an awful year, claiming so much. It took Dame Olivia de Havilland away physically, but she will be eternal through film, and we who love film will be eternally grateful for all her work in her extraordinary century.

I Never Thought It Would Be Today: Thoughts on My Own Grief Observed.

1942-2020

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS OF MY OWN GRIEF OBSERVED

Wednesday, May 6, 2020 was meant to be an ordinary day. My mother, Socorro Aragon, was going to have a simple CT Scan with Contrast, then after resting, we would go to her church where she would pick up the weekly grocery giveaway and give her tithe. She had more tests and appointments scheduled, all of which I would drive her to.

I enjoyed driving her to and fro. It gave us a lot of time together, more now with the lockdown in full effect and my employer, the City of El Paso, having officially furloughed me on Tuesday, May 5 even though I had not been at the Library for over a month.

We woke up early as the appointment was at 9:30 a.m. She could not have breakfast due to the test but she, like always, made me a little something. As I ate my egg burrito, I saw her: hair all perfectly made, with a nice short-sleeve blue blouse with frills on the ends. She felt a bit bad about not having any makeup, wondering if it would affect her test. "I didn't even put cream on me," she said.

"Don't worry Mom, I'll bring some with me for you after".

She had been diagnosed with breast cancer less than a month ago, a surprise at her age. There were two lumps on her left breast, one on top of the other. As such, she would require surgery, then chemotherapy and radiation. She was not looking forward to this. Still, she was forever optimistic about her prospects.

As we chatted, I observed her: a bright smile and sparkle in her eyes. "Mom, you look beautiful", I told her. She immediately but cheerfully dismissed such things. "Ay Ricardo, como te sales" she said in Spanish (loose translation, "Oh Ricardo, how you exaggerate".

I fussed over her, making sure she drank the liquid required for the test, packing the medication she needed to take afterwards, bringing some water and chips for her to drink and munch on after she finished.

The Texas Oncology Center we were sent to was clear across town, so we left early. I played the Sirius XM Escape station for her as the easy listening music was her style. I would take glances at her as we drove to the Westside, and I could see her reading her Bible, lost in the Word.

We get there a little before nine. Obviously I couldn't go in, but I walked with her to the door, both of us wearing our masks. She took with her a jacket, saying "Siempre hace frio adentro" (It's always cold inside). She gave her name to the waiting nurse at the door, who took her temperature. "You have your phone?" I asked. "Si", she replied. "OK, just call me when you're done".

Despite the mask I could see she was happy and smiling, her eyes again bright.

I waited outside, reading a magazine and seeing more people come. Soon the Sun was starting to hit me hard, so I went back to the car to drop off my bag and maybe take a walk around. I casually noticed the fire truck and ambulance pulling up but didn't give it much thought.

I then got a call on my phone, marked "Possible Scam". I opted to answer it just in case. The caller mentioned something about "Socorro Aragon", and I was briefly puzzled as to why they were calling my cell phone. It was coming from the Texas Oncology and I was more puzzled as to why they didn't realize she was already inside.

It was then that the voice became more frantic, telling me that I had to go inside immediately.

I went in and my daze started to grow and grow. The physician in residence looked stunned and confused. The details are now a bit muddled, but from what I remember she told me my mother had an immediate reaction to the dye, her heart had stopped and had lost consciousness. She was being rushed to Sierra, less than five minutes away. I was, if I remember well, given the option of riding with the ambulance or going in my own car. I went in my own.

Inside, I was handed her purse which also had her jacket and bra. Outside, I was handed her shoes and got a quick glimpse of her. The paramedics were working feverishly to get her heart started again, and that quick glance just hit me into an almost paralyzed state. Still in a daze, I drove to the hospital.

Finding parking, rushing to the emergency room, still having to have my temperature taken, I was made to wait in the deserted emergency waiting room. I called one person, then another, the first one asking if he could call me back, the second I had to cut off when I was allowed inside.

Between filling out forms and trying to remember if she had a living will I could see the emergency staff huddled as they tried desperately to revive her. Eventually, the doctor came up and said they did everything they could but after half an hour could not restart her heart. Nodding my head, they finally stopped.

"Time of death: 10:15", I heard.

My mother was dead.

I then was allowed to go inside.

Perhaps this is my projecting, but her expression was the beginning of my falling apart. It looked to me as though she was stunned at what had happened. Again, this is probably my reaction, because I was not expecting this.

It was a simple, routine test, one that as far as we both knew, had no risks.

I closed her eyes, not wanting her to see this. I hated the way she looked now: her blouse and hair a mess. I held her hand, feeling the warmth of life slip slowly into the coldness of death. I just needed to hold her hand, to let her know I was there. I just didn't want her to be alone.

For an hour I cried, snot coming down all over me, yet I could not let go of her hand. "Mommie, Mommie, I love you and am so proud of you," I said. I caressed her hair, kept looking at her, thinking.

So much drifted into my mind: our long life together with trips and hopes for others, her deep love for our fractured family, little private memories.

Despite my growing grief, I knew we needed to take care of many things. The first thing I did was call my cousin Sylvia, whom I consider the smartest person and probably the most capable person in my immediate circle. It took her an hour to get there, and she too grieved with me.

I could not have done much if anything without her. She was slightly divorced from things, and had a more rational look. We contacted the coroner's office and the attending nurse helped us there. We knew we also had to contact the funeral home.

In that respect Mom was very realistic and prepared. After my grandmother's death Mom had paid for her funeral, even having foresight to buy the adjoining plot. Many times she would say, "Ricardo, ya tengo 77 anos, ya estoy vieja" (Ricardo, I'm 77, I'm old), so the reality of death was not lost on her. Mom had picked out her casket, made the arrangements, and was even a bit grumpy about not being able to prepay the flowers on the casket. She also had been very clear: no open casket.

Eventually, once assured that the funeral home could come and collect the body, we went to the funeral home, masks on. We were attended to and fortunately they had all the documentation as when we called we had set the appointment at 2. They treated us very well and I made the decisions on the memory book, the prayer cards, the newspaper announcements. Sylvia took a hands-on/hands-off approach: sometimes asking specific questions, sometimes saying she was there just for moral support.

There were about two things I disagreed with Sylvia on. First was on the date for the service. The first date offered was Sunday, May 10, but there was simply no way I could hold her service on Mother's Day. The fact that both Mexican and American Mother's Day fell on the same day made such a date simply unacceptable and unbearable (in Mexico, Mother's Day is always May 10 no matter what day of the week it falls).

The second was on the tithe. Mom had made out her monthly tithe check the day before. She had it in her purse but had not placed it in the envelope, which she was using as a bookmark. I wanted to honor her wish to give her last tithe to the church she so loved. Sylvia thought otherwise.  As I am furloughed she at first thought it was a waste of money. However, here is where I think the Holy Spirit worked on her even if she is not a woman of faith. She got around to seeing the tithe as an unofficial honorarium for the pastor.

I had to call her church, Nuevo Pacto El Paso, to see if the pastor would be available to speak at her service. The pastor's wife, a pastor herself, answered. When she asked for the name, I said, "Socorro Aragon". Rocio de la O was the first to say what I heard many say in the days after, "No, no mi hermanita Socorro/Socorrito, NO" (NO, not Sister Socorro/Socorrito, NO!). The pain each of them expressed was in a strange way comforting. It made me feel a little at peace knowing how much she was loved.

By the time we, or I, had made as many decisions as I could it was close to five. It was my Longest Day, and yet still more to do.

Sylvia's partner Bertha brought some food, as I had not eaten. It took me days for me to even open the lunchbag, the water and chips still there. I could eat only a bit of the steak and didn't even try to take the potato.

I opted to first call all the people on her cell phone contact list, alphabetical order. It was both painful and therapeutic to repeat the same story, but it made it hard to hear each of her closest friends and sisters in Christ wail their lament at the sudden and unexpected death.

Yes, my Mom was 77, and yes, she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, something she kept private from many people. However, the fact that it happened that day, so quickly, with no warning, I know sent many into disbelief and agony.

I had many more phone calls to make the next few days. I called my cousins, other sisters, friends both of hers and of mine. It got to the point where I was becoming physically exhausted by it all, let alone emotionally exhausted. There was one person whom I held back and back on calling: my Mom's only living sister Alicia.

I think a part of me just could not bring myself to call her about this, especially since my Mom was younger. In a strange fate it was my Tia who called me. "Esta tu mama?" (Is your Mom there?) she asked. I had asked my cousin Sergio, her son who was in Ohio driving a trailer, not to tell his mother. I think this should have come from me.

My Tia and I talked, and while I can't remember exactly what was said I do remember quiet sobs. I have no insight into my Tia's mind and heart, but I know that perhaps it was better that my Mom went first. My Mom is extremely loving towards family and perhaps if my Tia had died first it would have been far more than my Mom could have endured.

The night of my Mom's death, if I slept two hours it would have been a miracle. I was numb, overwhelmed with so much. I had a terrible sense of guilt, repeating to myself that it was my fault, that if I hadn't been insistent on her having the test, if I had made her miss the appointment, that if I had told her not to take it.

I do find that maybe people do carry this burden of thinking they could have done something, but again the Spirit came to me and gave me insight. Mom many times had said that she didn't want to die slowly. She had told me and many of her friends and family that she wanted to die quickly. The Lord Jesus Christ, in His Grace, granted his daughter her wish. That she became immediately unconscious means that she knew nothing of what happened, and in a sense she died peacefully, if to me chaotically.

Mom was a woman of deep faith, deep faith. One of my final memories of her are of her watching the YouTube broadcast of the Nuevo Pacto service, her hands raised in worship. My own faith at the moment couldn't match hers. I struggle and stumble through my almost-daily Bible readings, and I rarely if ever watched online Services. It complicated matters that my work schedule had me work every Sunday without exception save for vacation requests or Easter (and there had been a rumor that the Deputy City Manager who oversees Libraries wanted us to be open on Easter too, though last year this did not come to pass).

It got to the point where I had to look up the times for my own church, Cielo Vista, because I simply did not know their hours anymore.

I never joined a Community/Care Group, and the Men's Group met at 6:30 on Wednesdays. I had finagled to leave at 6 on Wednesdays, but the drive from work to CVC was well over half an hour. After a while, and after once accidentally showing up at some kind of children's/teen event, I pretty much left.

Mom's faith was such that she would ask her sisters to pray for me. I think she thought I was not a Christian, or at least one whose faith was almost none. I never really walked away from God or faith but I find it hard to believe. Perhaps there is enough evidence to indict me on the charge of being Christian, but nowhere near enough to convict me, as the saying goes.

It's strange that despite my Mom's death not once have I been angry at God. I'm the type to think that if I have a flat tire, it's a sign that God hates me and wants me to be miserable. In all this though, I've never thought God was punishing me. Yes, I hurt. Yes, I feel guilt. I don't think however that I have asked God, "Why?". I too have that realism about death. "Vivir es una enfermedad mortal" (Life is a terminal illness), Mom would say. Again, she knew death would come one day.

I just never thought it would be that day, that specific day, that May 6, 2020, that simple day where we had plans and that was going to be routine and remarkably uneventful.

I don't think any of us are ever ready for when our parents die. It does not matter whether it comes quickly like it did for my Mom or whether they linger on in pain, as it did for my Grandma. We are never emotionally prepared because a little part of us still thinks that he/she will come back. It is our parent, our Mommie, our Daddy, that person who even when they don't love us or care about/for us we still have an attachment to.

My Mom made a couple of curious though perhaps imminent statements shortly before her death. Earlier in the month, she said that she had dreamed about her mother. I can't remember if it was the same time or not, but she also said, "Todavia estrano mi madre," (I still miss my Mom) and my Abuela has been dead for twenty-eight years.

How then could I not miss my Mom, who has been dead less than a month?

I think here, again, the Lord granted Mom something beautiful. Death is not beautiful for us, but I think for Mom it was. It was quick, it was painless, and she now really is worshiping in the presence of the Lord she so loved. She is also reunited with all those she so dearly loved: her mother, so many of the brothers and sisters she missed, and especially my cousin Jose Cornejo.

Jose was, I think, her favorite nephew whom she had lost contact with for decades. She longed to see him and again, thanks to Sylvia, she reconnected with him when Sylvia found him for her. They talked often, but Mom resisted going to California to see him. Jose was also battling cancer and I think she wanted to remember him as a happy, mischievous child versus the withering old man she imagined.

For months I begged her to take that trip, and for months she resisted. Finally, in late 2018 I flat out told her, "Mom, this literally could be your last chance, either for him or for you". She finally agreed and we went to see him in December of that year. It did her such good to see her Pepito once last time, as it did for him to see his beloved Coyo (his name for her stemming from inability as a child to say "Socorro").

Less than three months later, Jose would be dead.

My Mom was devastated, but she took comfort that she got to see him one last time, hold him, hug him, tell him how much she loved him, and that she saw him in good spirits and relatively good health. After his death, his cousin on his Dad's side sent us a picture of him when he was younger which Mom put in a cabinet in the living room.

Every day afterwards until her own death, she would sit down and turn to his picture and blow him a kiss, often asking him how he was. I don't think this makes her bonkers. She wasn't expecting his photo to literally reply, but I think it gave her a sense of comfort and peace.

When we went to California, I had to sneak a picture of Mom to him (Mom thought it was silly to give him a picture of herself). It is my favorite picture of Mom: she is standing next to her beloved roses wearing a blouse that seems to match the bright colors of her roses. When I called my niece Nina, who took care of her beloved Uncle Jose in his final months, she told me she would place the picture her Tio had next to that of her mother (another cousin also named Sylvia).

"Is that a picture with roses?" I asked. She said yes, and it did warm my heart that despite my Mom's to my mind irrational concerns Jose kept that image with him until his death. I too have a copy of it, and I put her picture next to his, as I think she would have wanted to be next to him.   

Sylvia came by the next day to craft a beautiful tribute video. I did wonder why she insisted on keeping her mask on inside the house when A) I was the only person inside and B) we were more than thirty feet apart for most of it, as I was on the opposite end writing her obituary. She might have had two masks on, something that she has done recently and which she encourages me to do whenever I go out.

I do know that I could not have gotten through those first days without her. Sylvia's natural efficiency and planning carried me in my overwhelming grief, confusion and fear. I think at times I put too much on her, unintentionally shifting a lot of responsibility on her. I know I pushed her to the edge when another cousin in California sent another tribute. It was the straw that almost broke the camel's back (or in Spanish, the drop that caused the glass to spill). I also could not have gotten through without her sister Veronica. Vero also takes great precautions: she won't set foot in anyone's house and wears many scarves despite the heat.

Vero however, took over the calling of mourners and set out an excellent schedule for visitation. Sylvia commented that it was hard hearing me repeat the same story over and over again, constantly breaking down. However, part of me felt a little relief and release at being able to let this out. Without them I really would have fallen apart, perhaps beyond repair.

I also relied heavily on a fellow furloughed employee, Susan. She was adamant on the day of my Mom's death that I not try to do everything in one night. I had to find the clothes she would wear, causing me to fling mountains of clothes onto the bed (Mom was a fashion plate and very much a girly-girl). I was looking for the burial plot papers, looking for a good wardrobe choice, insurance papers, but again Susan said it didn't have to be done all at once.

She demanded that as soon as we finish talking that I go straight to bed. Eventually I did, and as I said sleep came hard for me that night.

I think I picked out a nice outfit for her, opting for no shoes. I remember the polka-dot blouse, Mom loved polka-dots. I made sure that it was all color-coordinated, she would want nothing less. I did hate the fact that her room was such a mess, and worse that I was making more of a mess trying to put things together, organizing her various blouses and blazers and coats.

Mom was clear: donate everything to Candlelighters, and I fully intend to honor her request. Will I keep any of her clothes? What would I keep? I certainly can't wear any of it, but perhaps the shoes she was wearing the day she died. Somehow, as irrational as it may be to keep them, I can't bring myself to let them go.

I know I will keep a few things: sentiment runs strong in me. A couple of Walt Disney World raincoats we got the first time we went there, her Minnie Mouse ears, a few jackets. There would be no logic in keeping all her clothes, which was against her wishes. There also would be no logic for me to stay in my room.

Mom was adamant about this too: she did not want me to keep her room exactly as it was. The last thing she wanted, she would say, was for me to turn her room into a museum or mausoleum. The idea that I would be in perpetual mourning, that I would try to keep her alive by keeping things as they were at her death appalled her. She believed Life was meant to be lived, and to try to keep things static was unacceptable.

"No me llores mucho" (Don't cry a lot for me) she would say. She understood that I would cry for her. She was my mother, my Dearest Mother she would say, and we both know it is natural to grieve your parent. However, to stay forever in grief, to not move on, that is something she would not have wanted.

I'm not sure how I'm doing on that front. I sometimes am stumbling through days. I've hit that point where I don't want to get out of bed, but I do. I do have fleeting thoughts of using up all her leftover pills or flashes of guns, thoughts that flee from my mind as soon as they come.

It, however, is not her death that causes this quick hysteria and flights into death fantasies, though it contributes. It is the fact that my life has been forced into a standstill. I have nowhere to go. This house arrest is brutal. A couple of times, after I have the boxes I need already in my shopping cart, I wander the Walmart just to get out of the house. I should walk the paths of the nearby park, but I worry the El Paso Police will sweep in and either cite or arrest me if my feet touch the grass.

My despair is compounded by my furlough. It is compounded by the City's firm insistence that the Libraries (along with the rec/senior centers, museums or other quality of life facilities) won't reopen "for years", and the fear that the City may never reopen them (or worse, that it does not want to reopen them). It's despairing to think that the City, which I loved working for all these nearly 13 years with great joy, seems to be fighting furiously to keep me unemployed because "they have no money". Other Texas cities at least say they are working to reopen the libraries, but El Paso seems dead-set against even considering that option.

It may be paranoia, it may be the grief, but knowing that you have no job and fast-fading prospects for one compound my misery. I am thoroughly alone. As much as my friends and relatives are with me, they can't stay with me (and some relatives are so terrified of Covid-19 that they refuse to set foot in my house). I am unmarried, have no children, no brothers/sisters. Despite what might be thought, we all need that human touch.

Charlie, the Men's Group leader at CVC, often says we were not meant to live this life alone, yet I am, I am so thoroughly alone. I am beset by so many forces on so many sides. During the early days of the furlough at least my Mom was here for company and moral support. If perhaps I were working when she died at least I would have had the distraction of work and the sense of security of a job.

Now, I have neither. My sense of worth is all but shattered, and I have voices shouting at me that if I want to go back I want to kill people. I don't want to kill anyone. The closest person in my life is dead, and I can't draw on her wisdom or moral support. I have no wife, no children, no immediate family, no job. What then am I living for?

It is easy to slip into total despair, and I understand all those tragic people who commit suicide, who are so overwhelmed with emptiness and no hope that death is about the only hope they have. Death through their own hand is seen as that release: to no longer worry about things, to go out quickly versus seeing your whole world crash slowly, even if it means "saving just ONE life".

Despite my friends telling me they will miss me and feel my absence, part of me knows they would go on. I understand that desperate despair, that awful, frightening temptation, yet I still hold on. I can't give an answer as to why; perhaps the closest that I can find is that somewhere within me there is a sense that my time has not yet come.

It does not take away the awful tension headaches, the heavy sleep, the impending sense of dread, the rising anger at the endless messages sent about how "we're ALL going to die!" from this pandemic and how their fears are killing me in other ways, the sense that you cannot answer and scream at even those you love and who love you that their sense of doom is smashing your future or your hopes.

I have awful choices: to get a cheap job as a security guard despite my Master's Degree or leave El Paso, a place I dearly love, to leave my home. If at least the City said "we hope to reopen the facilities soon" or "we're working on a plan to reopen", if there were any sense of hope, but there isn't, or at least it appears that way.

All this compounds the grief I bear, I bear alone. I am overwhelmed.

I am working my way through Psalms, and find David often despaired. That brings me some hope, and at times I'm full of worship and faith, and other times so empty. I cry out to God, knowing His ways are True, knowing He has no need to offer explanations or reasons. Charlie warned me that the Enemy would use my Mom's death to question God, but it is the double, triple blow of her death, my career's apparently imminent death and this overwhelming fear that I see around me that does not make me so much question God but feel inept.

Mom never prayed to not have suffering, but to have the strength to endure it. I know she would not have wanted to endure surgery and months of chemotherapy and radiation, but she would have endured it if it was the Lord's will. The Lord, again in his Infinite Mercy, granted her prayer request of a quick death, but had He willed for her to have surgery and treatment, she would have endured through the pain. God was merciful and loving in her death, and I know He did not cause this , any of this, let alone caused or created it to inflict pain, sorrow and misery.

I, however, don't know if I have the strength to endure all this. Mom would say "No hay enfermedad que dure cien anos, ni paciente que lo suporte" (No illness last one hundred years nor a patient that can endure that for that long). Pain is temporary. Physical pain is, emotional pain lessens, grief fades into acceptance. As we go through it, it is intense and punishing, but perhaps my faith is just strong enough to know that I will endure it. It is an awful process, one that causes me to pray for strength to endure not day by day but at times hour by hour, minute by minute, to have enough to get through to the shifting from day to night.

Sometimes I do pray in thanksgiving for waking in the morning and lasting to the night. Other times again I fight not to stay all day in bed. I do know, however, that Mom never wanted a defeatist as a son. "No eres hecho de crystal" (You aren't made of crystal) she would often say. I do fight to remember that I will not shatter, that I will get through. That is what probably keeps me alive even when I don't want to go on, when I see nothing before me but desolation and despair.

Perhaps knowing that I would disappoint my Mother so very, very much if I did take my own life is what keeps me alive to see as many sunrises and sunsets as the Lord has decreed. I don't judge those who have killed themselves. I understand their desperation, their sense that they are helping those whom they know. I think many suicides think they are doing good for those they leave behind. It is a terrible temptation, but like all temptations one that finds in those vulnerable a great sense of appeal.

That is what temptation is: something that appears good but that does lead to destruction. It does not matter what that temptation is: sex, food, money, death. None of those in and of themselves is terrible: even death is good as it is the natural closing event with the hope of things unseen. However, the temptation comes when it is presented as something for yourself versus something that comes from God. The lure of speed, of pleasure, of release, of comfort, of want: all can overwhelm us. We are all tempted and capable of succumbing, and those who do kill themselves fall into that temptation of false release from pain, despair, hopelessness.

Again, perhaps despite my overwhelming sense of grief and agony, I keep going. I've been down several times, and Mom was at heart a very optimistic and hopeful woman. I would dishonor her if I failed to follow her example. It does not take away that temptation, that fear, that lure of a fast solution, but perhaps that love that transcends time and space will keep flowing to me to allow me to go on one more day.

Dear Job: so close to my heart. If memory serves correct he never did get a firm answer as to his miseries despite having cause. Susan, an atheist, said that God caused Job's miseries. No, I said, God allowed miseries, painful awful miseries, to come to Job. There is a difference, a hard lesson I have learned. God does not cause miseries and pains. God allows them to happen. He could easily step in and fix all our problems. He could have stepped in and stopped the Holocaust, 9/11, this pandemic, my lost job and lost mother.

Yet, is that His job: to spare us pain? To give us perpetual paradise? To never let us suffer? God, I don't think, would be such a parent, one that would spoil us to where we would not be able to confront hardships, let alone know how to handle them. God is our Father, but just as we cannot expect our actual fathers or mothers to remove every stone from our path, why do we expect our Heavenly Father to do exactly that? God does not inflict pain. He asks us to trust Him to endure the pain of life.

I find that hard. Why lie? It would be wonderful to say, "Oh, I firmly believe that God will carry me through and my faith is unshaken". My faith is very much shaken. My faith has been for most of my life as a Christian built around circumstances: if things were going great, God loved me, if things were going badly, God disliked or even maybe hated me.

Now I'm facing the greatest set of crises in my entire life, dwarfing all those petty moments that I thought were a matter of life and death. How have I responded? With constant crying out to God, sometimes in anger, sometimes in despair, sometimes in grief, sometimes in misery and sometimes, surprisingly to me, in hope and adoration. I claim no great insight in God's mind, but despite my awful and contradictory faith I do see His Grace and Mercy. It is an Awful Grace because it is born from pain, sometimes almost unendurable pain.

At times I am positive that God will carry me, and I have seen the Holy Spirit work in these awful, awful days. I used to feel such awful guilt about not having children, knowing that Mom wanted to be a grandmother. It wasn't for lack of wanting children, but I just never had success with women, never found someone interested in me, let alone interested enough to build a life with me. However, the Spirit has been a true Comforter there: it showed me that through my cousins, Mom did serve as a grandmother. My two youngest nieces Janina and Cynthia have taken Mom's death very hard, as they were close to Mom.

I have been released from that guilt, from that burden and sense of failure. That is God's Mercy coming through.

It does not take away the exhaustion of it all, the sorrow and grief coupled with the despair of the future, but it's a little something that I hold onto.

Eventually, the visitation was set for Tuesday, May 12. To placate my cousins continued fear that the older Mexican women who insisted on coming would hug me and automatically inflict Coronavirus on me, I wore a long and heavy coat inside the chapel as an added layer of protection. It is an awful time to not have had the chance to let my Mother have her family and friends grieve her collectively, to have to set out a schedule, but such is the state of the world.

Before Sylvia arrived to set up for the video tribute she crafted, which was quite beautiful, I had a few minutes alone, completely alone with my mother. They did do a beautiful job on how they prepared her body, though to be honest I don't think she would have liked the amount of lipstick on her. I always thought of her as a beautiful women who never looked her age. Many of my friends who knew her expressed surprise that she was seventy-seven. They told me they thought she was at least a decade younger.

It helped that she took great care in how she looked and that she was still active and mobile and lucid. Another of my final memories are of her ostensibly moping the living room floor with music playing on the radio. I walk in and see her moving to the rhythm joyfully, then she pulls me in and we have an impromptu dance.

That is the type of person Socorro Aragon was, and how she would like to be remembered: joyful, happy, smiling, loving life, loving shopping, showing me the endless blouses she picked up at bargain prices from thrift stores and J.C. Penney's, one who loved life, good music and had a joie de vivre. For the longest time she said she wanted enchiladas, and on the last Sunday of her life we were able to go to a nearby restaurant once the restrictions were lifted for her to enjoy them.

It was the last time she drove too. I had been doing the driving exclusively but that day I told her she should drive, and drive her Explorer. I joked that I hoped she remembered how, to which she responded "No seas payaso" (Don't be a clown/don't be silly). God even in that way blessed her too, by allowing her this tiny treat before calling her home to His presence.

As I was with her, admiring how well they did her nails, lightly caressing her hair, I took advantage and slipped into the pocket of her blazer two objects which I got from her wallet: my cousin Jose's prayer card and a picture of my graduation photo. She carried those with her in her wallet and as silly as it sounds, I wanted her to have them with her in eternity.

It seems strange but in all this time, I still don't have the courage to go through her purse and empty it out. I've gone through her closets and drawers, packing almost everything away, saving the scarves for my cousin's wife and daughter as they too wear them for protection. Yet for some reason, the purse she had on the day she died is still somehow something I can't empty out. It feels almost disrespectful.

There was a Family Hour before the visitation where the casket was open. Due to the limits on people we had to split the family in two. I'm not proud of my initial actions. At first, I had ordered certain family members not to come. I was holding on to things in a misguided idea that I was protecting my Mom.

However, Mom many, many times was clear: she did not want anyone forbidden to come. We had fights about that. I should have honored her wishes immediately, but I had told my Tia that I did not want certain people to come. A couple of days after Mom's death I had a long, long conversation with her, about three hours. We talked about my Mom, the tribute, and so much. One thing that particularly hit me hard was when my Tia softly asked if she could touch her.

I immediately said yes. Why would I object to such a request?

However, it was something else that happened that immediately caused me to both repent of my own sin and showed how God does work all things for good. My cousin, one of those I forbid from coming, called. My Tia puts all her calls on speaker, so I could hear my cousin. I could hear the pain in her voice and hear how hurt she was about my banning her.

It was then that I told my Tia that everyone was welcome to come. I was wrong, terribly and awfully wrong to have tried to stop anyone. The Lord worked wonders in my anger. First, He gave me time to repent and stop from causing my Mom's spirit great pain. She would not have rested in peace if I had gotten my way. Worse, I would have regretted that to my own dying day and would have caused pain for others, something my Mom would never have done.

The family issues that caused so much misery in life faded, particularly with my Mom's embrace of Christianity. She truly lived out that idea to "forgive as you have been forgiven". It took time, but my Mom forgave my Tia and my cousins for years of hurt. It was my Mom who built up relationships, restoring them and rebuilding burnt bridges. I mostly stayed out of it, but I see my Mom's gentle nature and acceptance of things gave her peace.

Yes, sometimes my Mom and my Tia would get mad and argue. Mom would hang up on her and say, "I'm NEVER talking to your Aunt again!" At that point, I would laugh and say, "Oh, Mom, of course you'll talk with her again. Why even bother telling me otherwise? In a few days you'll call her or she'll call you". Needless to say, that's exactly what would happen.

In the end, I found Mom's way was better. She forgave and found peace. I forgave and found peace. The Lord even allowed my foolishness to come to good use: thanks to my initial ban, I found out that my cousin had looked into whether the funeral home offered Virtual Services. I'm surprised Sylvia and I didn't even think about that. The Virtual Service allowed my California relatives and others to see the Prayer Service, so something good came from my awful actions.

I felt for my Tia. I pretty much left her alone, though my cousin insisted on staying with her mother, fearful of what would overcome her. I did see my Tia touch her younger sister. I can only speculate on how hard it is to be the last, to have outlived all your siblings, including two younger ones.

Once their half hour was up, they left and in came Sylvia's side, where again I left them pretty much alone. I also allowed my Mom's best friend for close to fifty years to come. Most of my Mom's friends and church sisters accepted that it was a closed casket, but Lily was in near hysterics. "Please, I want to see her, I want to see her", she kept pleading. I figure Sylvia was coolly tolerant of my granting Lily permission to come before the casket closed, though not thrilled with it. However, like Mom I am simply too much of a soft touch.

The Pastor's wife spoke, and I think Sylvia was a little anxious about how we were pushing the limit of people inside. It was a lovely message about Mom's faithfulness and her hopes that I be a Christian. As I said, there isn't enough evidence to convict me of being a Christian, though perhaps enough to indict.

Nuevo Pacto was so special to and for her. She so loved her sisters, and had been there for eighteen years. It was a special, beautiful thing for her. She so longed to go back in person, talk and laugh with all her sisters. She so enjoyed the "Ladies Night" and loved the parties and baby showers she would be invited to.

It would be wonderful for me to have had that connection to my own church. It is hard though when you have to work every Sunday, when you can't find a space for a Community/Care Group, when the Men's Group is almost beyond your schedule. I do miss that connection to the Body.

It was so wise and prudent of Mom to have everything arranged, and I cannot tell you how much that saved us both in money and grief. As I said, Mom was very realistic about death, about its inevitability. By arranging as much as she could, we were spared in having to make every choice. We also saved so much money, money that right now we simply don't have.

The final cost of her funeral was about $3000. When they were showing us the costs now, it would have run up to almost $7000. For a moment Sylvia and I were worried we would be asked to make up the difference, but it was explained that everything was covered save for things that couldn't be prepaid (the prayer cards, the memory book, the flowers). It ended up costing about maybe $700, and I should say it ended up costing Sylvia that much.

Like Mom, I am not fond of people paying for me. Many times Sylvia and Mom would duel it out to see who paid for their meals. I asked Sylvia if she really wanted to put it all on her card. "You're on furlough, you're on furlough", she kept repeating, dismissing my concerns by insisting I had no money. Same for the burial and nameplate, which ran into I think $1200.

I feel awful about the high cost, but she insisted, and I hope my other cousins do help her out financially.

Mom, in that respect, was both wise and forward-thinking. She spared me so much, and I hope others talk to their parents and/or children about their own funeral plans. This is a road we all have to walk, Mom would say, and to her enormous credit she did not fear death. She feared a slow death, but the Lord was gracious unto her in that regard.

Talk to your families about your funeral. If possible, plan and pay for it ahead of time. After my friend Fidel Gomez, Jr.'s death, I was convinced to pay for my own, something I am paying for even now. Once I am off the furlough and back working, I will buy my own plot. It must have been a simply awful burden for Fidel's parents and sisters to pool their resources in a terrible time of grief to do all that, and if I could spare kin from that it is something I should do.

Mom is next to my Grandmother. I know it will take time to put my Mom's nameplate on the grave. I expect to see it there when I go on what would have been my Mom's 78th birthday in July. That should be enough time, I think.

I have been to her grave exactly once since her burial. My Mom's best friend from elementary school had sent $100 that she had originally paid for flowers. The florist hired had not been able to complete the order and returned the money. I could not find a florist who could make a floral arrangement for less than that which could be done without a glass vase. A wreath struck me as silly given I could not leave it at the grave, so I opted to buy three dozen roses and place them on a vase that Mom put up (after having many fights with the cemetery) for my Abue.

I placed the two white dozen and one red dozen roses there and had a long talk with both Mom and Grandma. Again, yes, it might seem absolutely absurd to bonkers to do all that, but it gave me a beautiful, calming sense of peace. Cemeteries are quite peaceful places, sad places but peaceful ones, especially if like Mom & Grandma you are under lots of shade and have a nice, soft breeze coming to you.

In that time, I told Mom about her friend, how fortunate I was to find her thanks to a lovely Mother's Day card she had sent with the obvious expectation that Mom would see it. I could not find her phone number anywhere and despaired that she would not know about Mom's death. Thanks to that card, my cousin George could drop a note at her home, asking her to call me immediately. She did, and again I heard the devastation in her voice. Many times Mom had expressed a desire to see her physically and not just talk to her on the phone or exchange notes. For some reason or another they could never work out a schedule.

It's a shame they didn't get that chance to see each other, and I think this pandemic has caused so many moments like that. I know many if not all of my relatives are absolutely convinced that death will immediately strike them if people set foot in other people's homes, and I agree this is not the time for keggers. However, I also see how important that human touch, that interaction between people is. All those embraces from Mom's friends, from my friends, were balms unto my heart and soul. I cannot live in perpetual fear of coronavirus. I can take the precautions of masks and gloves, of social distancing (a phrase I despise), but I cannot go without an embrace, a held hand.

I especially cannot go without it now, when the only person who could do that is gone. My relatives won't touch me because they are so afraid, a handshake would be tempting fate. Yet they might forget that they all have people they can embrace: spouses and children, both of which I do not have.

This is not to condemn or ridicule them. As Susan has pointed out, if it makes people comfortable and brings them peace to wear a mask under another mask while outside that is good for them. Perhaps I appear more "reckless" because I sometimes think I have little to live for: no job, dimming prospects for one, no wife, no kids, no mother. I know they love me, that they are concerned for me, but they cannot carry my burden, my grief for me.

That is something I have to do alone, though I should as they say, "let go and let God". I can see where people would say God should bear my sorrows, but part of me thinks I have to carry them. Right or wrong I am not strong enough in faith to see or think otherwise.

Now that it has been almost three weeks since my Mom's death, coupled with my unemployment and growing fears of it, I can at last allow myself time to pause and reflect.

So much of my time has been spent on clearing out my Mom's things, and part of me despairs at seeing what I see as semi-organized chaos. I hate seeing the endless boxes of shoes and blouses and blazers and coats, of hair extensions and hoses and hats and caps. I see endless hangers (oddly though, hardly any wire hangers, mostly plastic ones). I hate seeing so much clutter on the dining room table and living room, so many scraps of material for perhaps an addition to a blouse or blanket that she never got to.

I'm in pain to see newspaper ads or flyers for vacation spots she wanted to go to. Sometimes, when folding a polka-dotted blouse I get a quick sniff of the scent that reminds me of her and I either want to or do start to sob, if at least briefly. I wasted too much time staring at her work name-tag when she was a Nurse's Aide, a job that she loved and was so proud of.

My mind quickly shifts to the day before her death, May 5, 2020, when I was forced to turn in my badge to a somewhat sympathetic officer, and the double shot of May 5 and May 6, 2020 threaten to overwhelm me in a depth of despair that I fear I may never emerge from.

I find more and more pictures, always of her smiling: with her work friends whom she loved, on a trip somewhere, when she was young and beginning her naturalization to citizenship. The ones I find of me or of us when I was a child, celebrating a birthday are the hardest for me. I start weeping again, even now, reliving those happy times when your Mommie was your security, sure that she would never leave you and would love you forever no matter what.

Making it harder is that I know I have barely touched the surface. There are boxes of papers that I know I have to go through, which right now I am leaving for much later for a variety of reasons: time, energy, emotional fortitude.

I know many people think I have all the time in the world to go through everything. After all, I'm not working and you're getting unemployment. Here's the thing: I can't spend all day every day going through her things. It is exhausting physically and emotionally. You do need time to rest yourself. As Susan said, I can't do it all in one night. I still need to function: pay bills, clean, keep clean, make my bed, do the dishes and laundry.

I simply cannot go without making my bed. If I am still in my pajamas at 10 a.m. I feel I'm falling apart. Despite not going anywhere I still get dressed, even if it is a slightly used shirt. It would be wrong of me to just shuffle through the days, either not clearing her things or doing nothing but clear her things.

I imagine that family and friends may be horrified that I drove all the way to Downtown El Paso for an extra-large mocha frappe at the Coffee Box, and worse that I met up with Susan there. Perhaps they think I have a death wish, putting my life and theirs at risk for immediate death for some coffee. I don't think they realize I do it because I need human interaction. I need to help a business that has always been good to me stay afloat. It was wonderful to see the ladies at the Coffee Box again, who still remember me and remember my usual.

I am helping them keep their jobs and business which they need to live. It would be useless to survive this pandemic and have nothing to live for, which perhaps is why my despair and grief is doubled at the prospect of not having a chance to return to work, to see the place where I was happy closed "for years" per the Chief Financial Officer of the City of El Paso. I am happy that their jobs and business was spared and am genuinely concerned that so many, fearful about the coronavirus, would let the jobs and businesses die so long as they themselves "live".

It is true: man does not live on bread alone, but man needs bread to live (metaphorically). I'm sure many will tell me I'm risking my life, their life and perhaps civilization itself if I opt to go the movies when they reopen. However, to be permanently hunkered down within these walls for fear of what might happen? My fear of unemployment, of poverty, of potentially losing my home trumps the fear of a virus that may or may not hit me.

This is not to mean I walk around without a mask when I go outside. I even wear gloves and carry hand sanitizers wherever I go. However, I will not and could not wait until there's a vaccine to emerge into the sunlight of life.

If I learned anything through these awful days, it is that life is unpredictable, with no guarantees or total security. Mom lived wisely: living every day but living out her life. She made plans, she had hopes and dreams, yet she knew that they may not come. She hoped that they would come, that she would get to see Italy or go back to Walt Disney World again.

However, I think she also accepted that such things were not guaranteed or promised to her. If things had gone as I expected them, I would have been this week in Houston, planning to see the Houston Cheaters and stopping by the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library. Instead, I filed my first unemployment claim and placed roses on my Mom's grave.

How could I have expected that a few months ago?

Now, I see so many paralyzed with fear and terror about this virus. It is serious, it is scary, but having lived perhaps the worst month in my entire life, it's an odd thing that this pandemic is the least of my concerns.

Mom lived her life trusting in God. Her trust, her faith were rewarded and redeemed on May 6, 2020, even if it came as a crushing blow to me. I'm thankful that one of her final memories are of me telling her how beautiful she looked, and of her in the Word, drawing strength from her faith. Mom never prayed for a life free from pain. She prayed for strength to endure it.

Perhaps that is why I do not fear Covid-19 the way so many do. It's an awful way to die, and having seen death this close this soon I cannot imagine the agony of those who could not be with their loved ones as they were ravaged by Covid-19. However, as someone who has had dark thoughts enter his mind, as something of collateral damage of both the virus and the fear of it, I do not fear to such a crippling degree.

As I think of all that I have lost this awful, awful year: job, parent, a lot of hope, baseball, I again pause to reflect. People have been very kind with gifts of food and money, and I am grateful even if at times I also want to flee. Every day is a struggle: as I said some days I simply don't want to get out of bed, others I'm zipping about. I shudder at all the cleaning, and how unorganized my home looks. I fear for the future.

Most of all, at the moment I feel such awful exhaustion, as if I really can't go forward even though I need to.

Mom was very clear: she didn't want me to cry a lot for her. Maybe my crying is both for her and my job, the utter devastation of a one-two punch that has left me all but dead. Simultaneously wanting and shunning company, feeling the need for companionship and desperate to get away from loud crowds, even those filled with friendly faces.

A lot of things are still raw, still painful. Scripture says that every day has enough trouble of its own, but I feel as if at least three days worth of troubles collide with each other the same day: Covid-19, my lost job, my Mom's death. I was blessed with a wonderful Mother. These were the happiest years, ones that had the least amount of struggle or strife. If we got mad at each other, it was certain that before the day was over we would forgive each other.

These last few weeks of her life were probably the happiest she had. She had her enchiladas. She had the chance to see The Call of the Wild via video on demand, which she had wanted to see before the pandemic hit. She was at peace with her family. She was at peace with her God.

It's painful to know she isn't here. It was all so sudden, but that for her was how she wanted to go. Many times she told her sisters that she wanted to die quickly.

I'm sure I repeated myself often, but I just wanted to let myself explore all that I am undergoing. No one goes through life without some kind of pain, though many pains afflicted me simultaneously. I am so tired.

I hope, trust and pray that Mom was proud of me. I think she is. I was always proud of her. I think that perhaps keeps me going, keeps me alive: the sense that I cannot disappoint her. I know in time I will laugh again, and there will be days when she does not occupy my mind.

It's strange that when I went to be furloughed, she both laughed and was enraged at my all-black ensemble. "Now I know how you'll look at my funeral," she declared, and demanded I change. To please her, I put on a white shirt with the black pants and black tie. I told her that it did feel like I was going to a funeral. I never figured I would literally wear the same thing to her funeral less than a week later.

Despite this my Confession of Grief, I have still kept things too personal, private and painful locked away. She was not a woman who liked to talk about herself. I am so tired.

I don't think "time heals". Time helps us endure, helps us move on but a little part of you will always hurt. The death of a parent is always hard. Add to that the death of your job and it makes it harder, yet I pray the Lord shine His face upon me. I pray that God search deep within to continue granting me his peace.

Mom's favorite Christian song was "Dios Siempre Tiene El Control" (God Is Always in Control), and she would sing me bits of it. I've heard that song often, and it has brought me some peace, especially knowing that for her these weren't just words set to music but Truth Eternal. It is hard, very hard, to see through the storm, especially when you are seeing the windows rattle and you fear everything will crash upon you.

I miss her. I miss my job. I miss the life I had a few months ago. I pray that God not spare me pain, but help me endure it.

Forgive my long ramble. I pray to emerge from this awful Dark Night of the Soul, and I figure some people's lives are harder than mine. In time, I will renew myself, review films and television. I thank you for allowing me this extended time to grieve for so much that I have lost in the course of one month.

I'm reminded of King David when his first child with Bathsheba was dying. He wept, he prayed, he would not eat. After the child's death, he cleaned himself and ate, puzzling his servants. David was realistic about it all: as long as the child lived there was hope, but now with the child dead why should he continue fasting? I don't think it was callous of him, or that he did not mourn. Instead, he accepted the will of God.

I pray too to accept the will of God, despite what I fear is an awful toll on me, and that all this come for His glory. I am so overwhelmed with exhaustion and grief, with anxiety and listlessness.

I want my Mom to know that I love her, I miss her, I'm proud of her and that I pray for strength to endure, to make her proud, to live up to her expectations of great things. She never lost her faith or her optimism. I pray to follow in this example.

Yes, I rambled, repeated myself and perhaps at times sounded incoherent. I'm just so glad to have been able to finally speak this peace, and to pray that soon, this double agony of a lost parent and a lost job is at an end. I again pray not to be spared pain, but through the Grace of God, to endure it.

To My Mother, Socorro Aragon...Amor Eterno.

Doris Day: A Personal Remembrance

1922-2019

In her first public appearance in twenty years for Turner Classic Movies' Private Screenings, Betty Hutton reflected on her life and work. "My private life has been hell, really hell. But my professional life was so wonderful because the audiences understood I was working from my heart".

The same could be said about Doris Day, who died today, a month after celebrating her 97th birthday.

Her first out of four husbands was so violently abusive he nearly killed her and their yet-unborn son. Her third husband, the only one she was widowed by, left her virtually penniless and had secretly signed her for a television series without her knowledge or input. Her only son Terry Melcher preceded her in death in 2004. One of her closest friends and the costar most identified with her, Rock Hudson, became the first major face of AIDS at a time when the disease was virtually unknown.

Despite all these blows and setbacks, like the sunny persona she had onscreen, Doris Day persevered and eventually came back stronger than before. I once made a case that The Doris Day Show demonstrated that despite being held up as 'the eternal virgin' so mocked by Rizzo in Grease, Day was more than capable of playing smart, independent women and could have adapted to the times.

She had the talent. Of Day's singing there has never been a doubt. Sentimental Journey, her first big hit, captured the mood of a nation coming to the end of the Second World War, nostalgia with hope for the future. Que Sera, Sera from The Man Who Knew Too Much is the song most identified with her, and it makes sense. While it sounds like a lullaby, Que Sera, Sera is full of wisdom about life, accepting and embracing the only constant in life: change.

I am puzzled as to why Day was dismissed as an actress, even by herself. She was a natural in musicals and comedies. Day had a nice, pleasant manner starting from her debut in Romance on the High Seas, which gave her another excellent song, It's Magic. She was the kid sister we could love and relate to in On Moonlight Bay and its sequel By the Light of the Silvery Moon. She could be the fiery Calamity Jane in the eponymous film.

There was a light of wholesome sexiness in her films, where she could be highly attractive but still keep the wolves at bay. We see this best in two of the three films she made with Rock Hudson: Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back (the third, Send Me No Flowers, had them as a married couple versus adversaries). 

However, in the few dramatic ventures she agreed to, she could more than hold her own as a legitimate and exceptional actress. See her performance as Ruth Etting in the biopic Love Me or Leave Me. She goes toe-to-toe with James Cagney as this songstress with a violent husband and struggles to be someone. One could say Love Me or Leave Me is closer to Day's own life than Calamity Jane.

See her performance in The Man Who Knew Too Much. For me, one of her best moments there is when she discovers her son has been kidnapped just as she is slipping under the sedative her husband (James Stewart) gave her. The fear, anguish and confusion swirling within and around her is a terrifying and heartbreaking moment.

There's also Midnight Lace as the terrorized woman someone is trying to kill, again letting the confusion and chaos of her situation compel you to see how she survives and sympathizing with her plight.

Doris Day was wonderful in all those musical and comedies. A personal favorite is The Glass-Bottom Boat where she's mistaken for a Soviet spy. I saw it as a child and was howling with laughter, though I'm not sure I got all the jokes. I did fall in love with her in On Moonlight Bay, and who wouldn't? Not only was she pretty...she played baseball! What more can a man ask from a woman?

However, as wonderful as she was in the comedies and musicals, her range as a dramatic actress was never fully tapped, and I think that was by her own design.

The thing was she was fine with her squeaky-clean persona no matter how square it might have seemed. She turned down the role of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (even if I think she would have been sensational in the role). She turned down offers to perform in Las Vegas or record more updated music such as the Motown she was fond of. Outside a few television specials and Doris Day's Best Friends, I think she just decided there were more important things in life than fame and a film/television career.

In particular, her long work for animals. Doris Day's Best Friends wasn't a chat show where she talked to her famous friends. Instead, it was about her real best friends: the animals whose welfare she devoted the rest of her life to.

Day had retired from the public eye for decades, not exactly a recluse but no longer involved in the entertainment industry or its trappings. Her last film was in 1968, her final television series, Doris Day's Best Friends, was in 1986. Her last major public appearance was in 1989 when she accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes. She consistently turned down offers of an American Film Institute and Kennedy Center Honors as well as, I understand, an Honorary Academy Award (though that one I cannot be certain of).

And yet here we are, reflecting on an extraordinary life, one filled with heartache and tragedy but also with a lot of laughs, joys and a song in our hearts. I don't think Doris Day would want us to remember the tumult that came in those 97 years: abusive husbands, near-bankruptcy, ups-and-downs in her career, tragic deaths of family and friends.

I also don't think she would care to have too much focus on her film and television career, even if perhaps she might begrudgingly accept that is what we most likely will remember her for. I think she would be happy to know she made so many people, myself included, so very happy with her work.

I think she would have been proud of her songbook and that some of her songs are now standards that may be duplicated but never equaled: Sentimental Journey, It's Magic, Secret Love from Calamity Jane, Que Sera, Sera, I'll Never Stop Loving You from Love Me or Leave Me.

If anything, I think her work with animals is what I think Doris Day would want to be best remembered.

For myself, I think she should be remembered for all that, for being an extraordinary singer, an actress of incredible range, and a woman who loved all creatures great and small.

For all intents and purposes, Doris Day was never a prisoner of her image. She was herself, and we thank her so very much.

We'll never stop loving her.

IN MEMORIAM

God In His Mercy Lend Him Grace. Fidel Gomez, Jr.: A Remembrance

1972-2017

Before this year officially ends, I need to pause briefly to reflect on one of the greatest personal losses I have had.  It is a blow that, four months later, I still feel very deeply.

My pastor has a saying: you are only a phone call from having your whole world turned upside down.  The Men's Ministry leader also has a saying: we are not guaranteed tomorrow.

Both of these are so true.  We wake up, have breakfast, if we're fortunate go to work, have lunch, continue working, and go back home before going to bed.  We make plans, sometimes short-term, sometimes long.  We believe ourselves assured tomorrow, especially when we are young and youngish.

We don't expect to be in that accident.  We don't expect to keel over clutching our chests.  We don't expect to stop breathing.  We live out our lives, not conscious of the fact that this day may be our last.  I think that is as it should be, otherwise we'd be in a perpetual state of fear.  Death is something that will come to us all, but it is not something we should dwell on.

Sometimes however, Death forces us to look at it.

On August 11, 2017, one of my closest friends, Fidel Gomez, Jr., died suddenly.

Just about every detail of Fidel's death is simply far too tragic and/or gruesome to share, and I know that he would not like much said and written about his life either. I have to balance paying tribute to him with respecting his right to rest in peace.

I think though, there are some things I can get away with with his approval.

I can share he never liked 'Fidel', because of well, you know.  Whenever we would get coffee, which was almost all the time and one of the bedrocks of our friendship, he would always give his name as 'Gomez'.  I can share that when we had coffee, we would spend hours and hours talking about anything and everything: our jobs, our families, our desires for relationships, Joy Division and Morrissey (whom we saw once together, with a 'Morrissey Birthday Party' being the rare time we'd hit a club).  It was an intimate relationship, as intimate as a relationship between two men can be without any sexual or romantic connotations.

Fidel and I met in college, if memory serves correct in the Radio/TV/Film Scripting class.  He was older than me and had been at UTEP before I got there, but graduated after me.  I guess he was what you'd call a 'permanent student'.  We bonded slowly over our mutual shyness and passion for films.  After he did graduate, we stayed friends before he disappeared, not returning or making contact for years.

It was only by the sheerest of coincidences that we reunited.  In 2014 I was going to Charleston and stopped at the Barnes & Noble to kill some time before going to the airport.  As I was leaving, I see Fidel sitting at a table.  I was thrilled to see him again, and I think he was happy too (Fidel didn't get thrilled by nature).  I tell him I'm about to leave but that I would call him when I got back.  When I came back, we picked up where we left off.

Neither of us could have thought we'd have just three years left, though I'm thankful they were three years of laughter, shock, deep conversations and contempt for bad films.

That was one of the things that held us together: we loved movies.  He got me to love Herzog and Fellini, and I got him to love Welles and Hitchcock.  We talked about Ebert & Roeper like some people talk about Game of Thrones.  We would go to the movies whenever time allowed, from the Alamo Drafthouse to the second-run theaters, always taking turns paying.

In fact, it took me a long time to even think about going back to the Alamo after his death.  It was always such a special place for us, almost 'our place', and I simply couldn't bear to go there alone, especially knowing he wasn't ever going to meet me there with a "Hello, Richard".

For reasons known only to him, he called me 'Richard'.  My friends call me 'Rick', my family calls me 'Richie', my parents call me 'Ricardo'.  He was the only person to call me 'Richard', and I never felt the need to have him call me anything else.

For me, however, our friendship was more than movies, though that was a big part of it.

I was able to open up with Fidel in a way I haven't with anyone.  He was more than my friend.  He was my confidant, the person I could talk about almost anything with.  I shared things with him I never shared with anyone, things that he did take to the grave.  I cannot say the feeling was mutual, but I had full trust that deeply embarrassing moments, private thoughts, and deep dark secrets and hopes were things I could share with him.

In a lot of ways, I think we were similar: both aspired to write, both knew the frustrations of not finding good work (though to be fair, I was blessed with a great job and he, sadly, wasn't), both marveled at how some people in Hollywood had careers when neither of us saw any discernible talent.

I know Fidel ultimately never fully opened up to me the way I did to him, though I too kept at least some things private.  I only wish I could have told him just how much he meant to me, how much I appreciated him and his friendship.  I wish I could have told him how special he was, how he always sold himself short, how many people genuinely cared for him.

I wish I could have...

I wish...

I miss him.  I just miss him.

I miss being able to share inside jokes, being able to have laughs about the people we knew and their idiosyncrasies. I am going to miss those little things: his frustration at having to pay for a 3-D screening of Gods of Egypt because he didn't check the screening times, his admitting I was right about CHIPS, his teasing me about how excited I was for Green Lantern, his imitation of me using a deep voice to talk about "the Criterion Collection" or how we in mock-tones would describe a film as "the most important film of this, or ANY generation".

The little things.

I also miss not being able to show him the original Murder on the Orient Express so that he could compare it with the remake.  I miss how we never got the chance to see Spider-Man: Homecoming together, a film he was completely opposed to seeing, even after I offered to pay.  After his death, I went to see it, alone.  There was simply nothing holding me back, but I watched it with a twinge of sadness, knowing full well that this was the first of many movies I would not be able to share with him.

He loved Blade Runner and I figure was looking forward to seeing Blade Runner 2049.  It tears at me that he never got the chance.  It tears at me that on August 11, the very day he officially died, I sent him a text asking if he was going to be able to go see Xanadu with me the next day at the Plaza Classic Film Festival as he had said he might, his work permitting.

I would never have imagined as I looked around, waiting to see if he would show up, that his remains were being carried out of his apartment.  I never thought as I was watching Xanadu, that my friend was never going to be there.

There hasn't been a week since his death where he doesn't comes to my memory, especially since I drive past the cemetery he is buried at whenever I go to work.  I think I can share that he would be both displeased and not surprised that he, who never learned to speak Spanish despite his name, would end up being buried less than five miles from the U.S./Mexico border.  I can hear his voice, again in mock-tone, imitating me in saying, "We are not amused".

His sister called me from his phone a week after his death to tell me he died.  That night, I had an uneasy sleep, and in the fits of sleep I managed, I had at least one short dream.

We were walking together when he made a sudden sharp right turn.  A barrier like a train crossing gate fell between us, and a figure suddenly stood alongside him.  This figure shook his finger, making it clear I could not come across, while Fidel just waved goodbye as they walked away.  I like to think that was his way of saying farewell, one last look before going.

After his death, I found that for how special he was to me, I had only one picture of us together.  It was taken when we went to a UTEP football game as a promotion.  I'm so glad I have it and treasure it, where it is displayed prominently.

To be honest, I haven't had the courage to see the DVD he lent me: a trio of war films that I never got around to.  Odd that the DVD now has a more special meaning: the last and only tangible thing I have left of him.

I feel his loss greatly, and perhaps I will as long as I am allowed to live by the Grace of God.  However, his death made me think about my own life, what I thought, where I was, how I was.  I am learning to appreciate each day I'm given, the friends I have (though few as close as he was to me).  I've learned to try new things, to break out of my routine and my shell.  I can't say that I'm starting an adventurous life, but I am learning to be less bound, both in what I try and in letting others define who I am. 

I know I have a limited life, and I don't want to leave it unexplored.

I figure that if Fidel read this tribute, he'd say it was too long, a bit sentimental, and using one of his favorite critiques of my writing, 'pretentious'.  Well, now let me end by coming round full circle, back to a memory of Charleston that came to me when I touched Fidel's casket and had the full impact of this great personal loss hit me hard.

One of the places I visited in Charleston after unexpectedly reuniting with Fidel was a plantation, Drayton Hall.  There, a descendant of the plantation slaves crafted an arch to the entrance of the slave cemetery.  On it are these words, "Leave 'Em Rest". I think that is as good a thought when it comes to Fidel now as can be given.

Whatever was buried with him should remain so.  There is so much I can share, but I know he wouldn't like it.  I'm not sure he'd like these reflections, but I want to share them because he was so very special to me.  I thought him fun and funny, smart, flawed, private, but a good, good friend, one I thought would be with me for years and years.

Goodnight and goodbye, my dear friend.

This is my tribute to my friend Fidel Gomez, Jr., someone I loved and will remember for as long as I have life & memory.

I leave you, my dear friend Fidel Gomez, Jr., rest.

IN MEMORIAM