Ode to Tio Chele

 

The fondest, most vivid memories of my childhood always play out on the same stage. The brick and mortar enveloping the sights and smells of my grandparents two bedroom home in West Miami.

I can still see the streaks of light that shone in the living room through the vertical blinds on Saturday mornings. The smell of freshly cut grass, and parsley from the garden still remind me of abuelo; café con leche and Organza by Givenchy, of abuela.

Through the eyes of a young girl, the characters in that house were larger than life. Through the memories of a woman? Larger still. My grandparents were a whirlwind filled with what can only be described as life. Always doing, and going, and dancing and laughing. The smell of sweet sweat filled the home. Sweat from abuela’s toil in the kitchen, and from the hot South Florida sun on abuelo’s brow as he tended to the greenery in the backyard . If love was a powerful physical force, the walls of that home would burst at the seams and tumble from being filled with it.

When I wasn’t sitting in admiration, or dancing, or laughing, I would follow. Follow my uncles around the way kids are wont to do, and if I was ever a nuisance, I never felt that way. Being the first grandchild and niece had its perks of course.

My Tio Chele was the second youngest of four. My mom was the first and only female of the clan and was forever abuelo’s princess. Chele was the middle child among the boys. Because my youngest uncle was so close to me in age, I felt more like a baby sister than a niece, and Chele would be the person to bridge that gap for years to come.

The thing I remember most clearly about him in those days was how fucking stylish he was. Not that it was hard, his green eyes and light brown fro made him distinctive without any effort on his part, that’s why we called him Chele afterall. Whether he wore his fro blown-out in all its glory, or as a crown of curls atop shaved temples, he’d throw on a tank top and self-ripped jeans and look better than most people do when they try. But when he tried? Man it was something else. Bold to say the least. Geometric printed button-downs and pierced ears, always something fresh; it was the nineties after all.

Chele was two perfect halves of my grandparents. Fair-skinned and the life of the party like abuela, with the hair and stylish swagger of abuelo. I remember the stories he would tell my uncles about girls and relajos and nights out, and how the stories and his delivery would transform if he was telling them to abuelo or abuela. He was a gentleman first and foremost, but a “man’s man” all at the same time, and knew how to cater to his demographic effortlessly. He was boastful and animated and so damn likable.

 

As I was growing up, Chele was studying design and architecture in college. He had a drawing table in the room he shared with my youngest uncle Gus, and while we played Sega-Genesis together, Chele would sketch figures and meticulously draw blueprints or make models for his courses. Late into his life he would perfect his whittling skills and become the best pumpkin carver Halloween had ever seen. Once, he sketched a photo of me from a portrait studio still, that was all cheeks and big eyes and a high side pony tail. That sketch lived in a frame in that West Miami living room until it moved to Nicaragua when my grandparents did, after abuelo had his first stroke.

The years that followed, when illness shook the foundations of that humble and joy filled home, were rough to say the least. Abuela had suffered her first heart attack by then, and the difficulty of working and assimilating in America, even Miami’s America, were too much to bear when adding abuelo’s illness to the mix. My grandparents had always been incredible dancers, and I spent countless Saturday mornings dusting and cleaning windows to salsas, merengues and cumbias. My uncles would run in and make a fucking riot. They’d join in the dancing or change the music to Miami freestyle, eighties synth pop, or nineties hip hop and R&B. It was always un alboroto, and everyone was invited. I think that’s what hurt my grandparents the most, the memories of how things had once been and the certainty that they’d never be the same again.

As I grew into a woman, my uncle Chele continued to be a source of guidance for me. He grew chubbier as the years passed, which only made me identify with him even more. No matter his size, he didn’t have a shred of insecurity, none that he showed anyway. He would sing Christian Castro and Luis Miguel, and dance in front of crowds and steal the spotlight. He was his parents son afterall.

Chele was highly competitive and a raving fanatic when sports were involved, and why wouldn’t he be? A house full of boys, and a patriarch who could’ve played professional baseball in his prime if he’d wanted to. They watched every game of the Dolphins yet unparalleled perfect season, and he chased that high for years to come. He was always the die-hard fan amongst the bandwagon. When the Marlins won the World Series and the Miami Heat became NBA Champions, he was that guy who’d watched the season from beginning to end. When he moved to Tucson Arizona with his new wife and child after my grandparents passed away in 2005, his garage became a relative shrine of sports memorabilia, hats, jerseys, and limited edition framed prints. Now? The only tangible things I have to remember him by are an old Miami Heat Championship cap, and the gold necklace he bought me for my quinces inscribed “I love you – OZO”.

 

I don’t know what it was about Chele. Maybe that he reminded me so much of my abuela. I can’t describe what she meant to me in words, and anytime I try, I feel the pressure behind my eyes and the knot in my throat that are a reminder that our journey together in this lifetime is over. The best I can do is compare her to a perfect day. A day where you wake up with the sun, a day where you feel accomplished and proud. One that rewards you with cool breezes, and unexpected surprises, and fills your heart with the joy of being alive. A day where you inhale deeply, and stretch every limb of body and mind, and go to bed thinking “if today was my last day on Earth, I couldn’t have asked for better”.

On every trip I took to Arizona during those next ten years, I had one of those days. Every visit was a pachanga, and when he’d talk about how much his daughter Zophia reminded him of me, my heart would swell at the thought because she reminds me so much of abuela. The move changed him in impressive fashion. He fell in love with Arizona and its mountains and saguaros. With the help and encouragement of his wife Mercy he would shed his excess pounds . He started hiking with his girls, and became a cyclist, and marathon runner. He bought a home for his family where he grew a garden just like abuelo’s, one that smelled of apples and freshly cut grass.

He introduced me to this new world of his on my first trip there. His excitement for the city, for the life he’d built, for everything he’d accomplished, was palpable. He’d turned his home into his own version of that two bedroom heaven on earth in West Miami. He was finally living his own version of the American Dream. My grandparents, educated and successful in their native country, left Nicaragua at a time of political unrest to the Land of Opportunity. They started over as an immigrant family and sacrificed their own accomplishments for their children. For Chele, his life in Tucson was a testament to that sacrifice. Born into wealth, knocked down by circumstance, and then, finally, back on top. Now what? Well now mi Chelito bello, you enjoy it.

He spoiled the shit out of me on that trip. We toured caves, and museums in the desert, we went hiking in the mountains and visited every must-see attraction we could squeeze in. He grilled steaks for me in the backyard with no shirt on like abuelo used to, and made huevos rancheros and cafe con leche for breakfast just like abuelas. He proudly showed me the running trails that helped him transform his body, and I breathed the dry air that brought his life so much joy, at a time when I needed the breath of life in me more than he probably realized. We shared our mutual struggles in finding balance in our lives, on work and family, our fears and dreams. He imparted all of the wisdom he could onto me, and I gave him my perspective on life while sipping on cocktails and talking shit in a way that I will forever miss.

In the summer of 2015, when his family back in Miami learned that he wasn’t doing well, Chele had been living in debilitating pain for nearly 6 months. In the few photos he shared during that time the change in his appearance was jarring. My strong Chelito with his full face and disarming smile grew thinner every day. I can still hear the hurt in his voice when we spoke on the phone, the worry of uncertainty, the frustration when the best hospitals money could buy couldn’t find the source of the abdominal pain that kept him up at night. Then, the relief when they prematurely ruled out cancer, but it was of course, cancer. Advanced peritoneal mesothelioma by the time they found it. I promised I would visit him soon, and when mom and I did, I brought all of the light and love I had in me into his hospital room and days after, to his hospice suite.

We were never again able to talk the way we once did, by then the chemotherapy had fucked him up worse than the cancer ever could have. He no longer had the strength to speak, though he tried for mom’s and my benefit. But in moments of heartache, words muddy up the water. They aren’t even really necessary. So we tended to him the only way we knew how. Ran our fingers through his curls, held his hand so he wouldn’t sink, kissed his forehead to sleep, and smiled silently into those charming green eyes. In my memories of both good and bad times, of my childhood, and burgeoning womanhood, the quiet moments are when the colors are brighter still.

Not two weeks after I left the desert, so did he. His passing has made me better, more present in this shell of a body, more aware of how fleeting life can be. I remember him fondly as a fixture in that West Miami home, that stands but blocks from where I now live, in a reality that sometimes feels eons away. Chele used to practice acoustic guitar on the big brown velvet couches and chairs in that sun-soaked living room. I would sit on his lap and he’d do the fret work for Hotel California while I strummed. I never knew why it was his favorite song, but it continued to be until the day he joined abuelo and abuela as a part of my memories on November 12th of 2015. His passing, cradled delicately between the 10 year anniversary of theirs; abuela’s in October, abuelo’s in December sometimes still feels like a dream. May we find strength in our angels in difficult times, may we find joy in the the small victories of each day. May we be grateful in moments of loss and sadness, for we still have the ability to feel, and live, and breathe. May our lives be free of apathy, and instead be filled with meaning and purpose so that when the reaper comes for our own souls, we may smile at death in the same fashion as Oscar Danilo Zamora, el que le dolía la cara por ser tan lindo, mi querido Tio Chele.