Excerpt from my aubiography-in-progress to honor daddy

Just a few hours ago I picked Papi up from the emergency room at Jacobi Hospital. He had hoped to get a steroid shot for his pain but instead the doctor gave him a dose of Percocet. These days, narcotics such as Percocet and Darbucet are all Papi has to hold on to. It breaks my heart to see him so groggy, totally dependent on painkillers. His weakened knees are wobbling uncontrollably; every otherwise simple step has become an enormous struggle. If you had only seen him way back when he used to be nice and strong!

“Papi, dame una peseta.”

I would constantly bug Papi for loose change to buy snacks. His olive green eyes would slightly wrinkle around the edges as he proudly reached into his pockets and pour a tinkling storm of coins into my expanded eager hands.

Papi used to drive a “gypsy cab,” providing “sub-legal” taxi service that catered to those who welcomed a fast and cheap alternative to the expensive and often unreliable transportation in the Bronx. Sometimes Papi would put in an “all-nighter,” arriving home just in time to take his nenas to school the next day. I have always perceived Papi as an ambitious, hardworking man -- The true essence of a “go-getter” who knew the Bronx inside out.

“Just like the back of my hand!” Papi likes to boast.

Sadly, Papi’s beginning to realize that he can’t remember many things as he used to. On those instances when he does recall a street name or some other memory from the past, he gets emotional and starts to cry.

Today when we arrived home I offered him a ripe yellow banana because he hasn’t eaten for hours. He holds out his hand and has hardly enough strength to grasp the fruit. Mami quips,

"You should've bought him an 'Egg Foo Yong'."

I sigh, for the hundredth time today, as I feel the stress pressing relentlessly against my temples. My chest is weary. How I wish I could ease Mami and Papi’s discomfort, their seemingly endless pain. I take Papi upstairs to my kid’s bed where he’s been sleeping since he came to our home. He removes his shirt and drops like a fly onto the smiling snowmen that adorn the flannel mattress cover . . .