Happy Fathers Day To All
The following entry was written 1 year ago.
Happy Fathers’ Day to all you fathers out there! This is a special Fathers’ day for me personally, not only because of the my three precious children, but because I want to finally tell my father how much of an inspiration he has been to me my whole life.
My dad and mom emigrated from Cuba to the U.S. in the early sixties wanting a better life for his family. My dad had the guts to leave much of his family behind, knowing and sacrificing heartache for the promise of an actual future. And right he was, for look at Cuba from the mid sixties to the present, and you’ll see one of the most horrifying countries in existence where there is no room for growth as a human being or civilization at all.
Dad is already 78, and he uses a respirator, partly thanks to all the smoking he did as a youngster (it was the “cool” thing to do back then) to his late fifties until he had his first heart attack at the age of 57. He has given my two brothers and I not only a wonderful childhood, but the greatest chance in succeeding at life that any parent can give to their children, and there really aren’t enough favorable adjectives in Webster’s Dictionary to properly describe him.
So here goes: Dad, you are my greatest hero. While I write this my tears of gratitude are actually falling on the spacebar of my laptop. Without your love and strong guidance I would not have been able to achieve the many goals I have realized thus far. You and Mom have given all of us such a wonderful chance of having a beautiful life, and through the good and the bad, the one thing that remains a constant, is the love and respect you instilled in us to continually become the greatest human beings possible.
I hear people tell me all the time–Orlando, you’re too much of a nice guy, and I immediately think of you with pride, because I TAKE AFTER YOU! Being too much of a nice guy is not so bad if it means I’m like you, Dad. To me, that’s the greatest compliment anyone can ever give me. Happy Fathers’ Day, Papi!
