Norberto

It began with a simple conversation about food.  Our appreciation of black beans, which led to Mexico and my discovery of refried beans, which led to talk of my Mexican host family and how they consistently asked me if I was Mexican because of my last name.  My last name led to Mama telling me there are three different ways to spell Gonzalez (z, s and no z or s…yep, just an e at the end).  And in that conversation is where I found my opening…I explained to her I carry this name but I know nothing about the man I got it from…her eyes brightened (as if it was the first time she realized this fact) and she began to speak…

His name was Norberto Gonzalez.  He was from Aguada, Puerto Rico.  He was really handsome and while she has no pictures of him, she says my father looks just like him.  Norberto was Mama’s first love.  He once had her heart.  According to Mama, he left for the merchant Marines and that was it for them.  Next thing she knew he was with a Cuban woman.  She says they never had children and so as far as she knows her two sons with him are his only children.  When he left, my Uncle Eddie (who passed either before I was born or when I was just an infant) was 5 years old.  My father was 3.  When Norberto was on his deathbed, he asked to see his sons again…maybe to apologize for not being there…maybe to just see them one last time (this time as grown men though)…either way, one went and the other didn’t.  When I asked Mama if she thought that the one who didn’t go made a mistake, she quickly answered “No.  Why should he go?  He wasn’t really a father to him.  He didn’t even know him.  I don’t blame him.  I understand why he didn’t go.”

Fatherhood.  It’s a lifetime obligation.  Even when the child isn’t biologically yours, they become your obligation.  When you marry a woman, you marry her children too.   Papa, my step grandfather (who Mama says resembled Norberto), apparently figured that out along the way.  He married a woman with three sons (one was not Norberto’s) and according to her he “worked for them, he always did.  He served as a fine model for my sons.”

I am blessed to have a father.  One who gives a damn.  One who understands the importance of family.  One who although he does more than he has to, never feels like he’s done enough.  It’s crazy because I remember how confused I was the first time I realized that neither my father nor my mother grew up with what Danny, Robert and I had/have.  Neither of them knew what it was like to have their father and mother together, as a team, through happy and sad, stress and joy.  Those small moments between a father and a child that are often taken for granted from us “two parent household kids” they didn’t have!  How could they do it then?!  Don’t statistics say he should have been long gone just like Norberto?  After all, how could he know better?  Then I realized what happened… 

What bonds my parents is love, without a doubt…but they are also unified in pain.  They knew what it felt like to grow up with your mother serving as both parents.  They knew what it was like to have big brothers stepping up to be the man of the house and how uncles/grandpas tried all they could to step in and fill those shoes left empty by HIM.  The pain of their childhood turned into our fortune.

My father was twenty something years old when his first son came along.  So what did he do?  He married my mom.  He worked two jobs (one at a liquor store and one as a cabbie), he got his college degree (yes, while working) and he figured out how to be a father (using Papa and my mother’s Tio Victor as his models).  Sure, he stumbled a bit and as he grew older, he grew wiser.  But, I tell you one thing he didn’t do…he didn’t leave. 

Unfortunately, this is all too common in our communities…part time fatherhood at best.  So, while Norberto’s selfish action has resulted in a union which promotes “family first”, it has also left a question mark in the heart and on the mind of a granddaughter (and I’m pretty sure a son) he’ll never know…