Thank you all for coming, my family (my mom Maggie, my dad Julio, my brother and myself are grateful that you came). This is a very sad occasion for us, we have lost our father, our brother, our grandfather and great-grandfather, but we want to make it clear that this is not just our loss and even if you never knew him you could always tell who he was by who we were.
He was my Papi, he was my friend. He taught me how to throw a ball and he taught me how drive a car. He gave me the tools to be better than he was but we all knew that men like him just aren't made like that anymore. I've always said that if I were 1/10th the man that he was I would be a happy man, and I think my brother and I are better men for it. He raised us to be caring, to have quiet dignity, and to stand up for your principles. When he left Cuba in 1971 and came to this country he didn't realize that he would be leaving his family and leaving his country forever.
We moved to a new house in South Gate and my parents started working, and my grandparents took care of us. They raised us. We were a close knit family trying to survive in a strange new place. He was always there for us, and as you saw in the pictures from last night, he was always off to the side, content to stand to the right or to the left in back and let us get the spotlight. He was a soft spoken man who carried a big stick, of principles, an honorable man who taught us to do what's right and stick by each other no matter what. He was married for 52 years before my grandmother passed away. We thought that we would lose him, like two love birds they were never apart, he was always right by her side, but he stayed right by ours.
When my grandfather passed away last Monday, I was ready for it, we all were because we didn't want to remember him as he had become, the disease that he had, had taken almost everything away from him, and he wasn't himself and I didn't want to remember him that way, but those memories that he had lost weren't really: he had given them to us. He wrote them down for me in a collection of poems or decimas that he had memorized when he was a kid and he had put down his autobiography in a binder along with it, but I had a library full of memories, a lifetime of lesson learned.
He knew that life was tough, but he was strong and made us stronger by laughing at it. He was a very funny guy, he was quiet in his way, but he was always playing, laughing at my weight or at my brother's hyperactivity, el guiri-guiri he would call him. When I would see him, I'd always say, "How are you Papi?" and he's always say one of two things, "Bien con Jota-Good with a J", the Jota or J standing for the first word of his other saying, "(J)odido pero me alegro." Jodido in this sense meaning screwed, but happy about it. That said everything about him. Or he'd hug me and ask me if I needed any money, which I'd always say yes. More importantly, when I would say goodbye, he's kiss me on the cheek and say , "Cuidate que de los buenos quedamos poco" Take care of yourself, because there aren't many good ones like us left.
When I needed someone to take me to speech therapy when I was kid, he volunteered to drive me, to Pasadena, once a week. When I decided later that I wanted to learn the accordion for some strange reason, he'd drive me to lessons. He taught me to drive a nail and to saw a piece of wood, but he didn't want that of me, of us. He wanted us to be teachers and psychologists which we are.
I think all of you have a special story about my grandfather, I won't pretend to be the only one with a special story about him, he touched everyone he met. He was everyone's grandfather, he was everyone's friend, and a more loyal of either you could never find, and I never have and never will.
They say that in the end we face the dark alone, that we live solitary lives, but that's a lie. My grandfather gave me everything I needed to be a good person, a good father, a good teacher, a good brother, and a good son, and I hope I've made him proud.
Adios Papi. Goodbye
