Ruben's message for dad.
I needed some time to gather my being, before I attempted to put to text what now sits heavy on my mind, spirit and heart.
To comprehend the complacency of thought that a father, while transcendent, is mortal, of flesh and bone, blessed by God’s grace to walk the soil, but for the vessel to someday return to it as the soul departs. To that, his rein on this Earth would come to close and so it has come to pass.
It is the regret of natural neglect, the passing of time, taking for granted the tempo at which the ticks seem to increase, as our own lives are undervalued by the rhythm of being busy. That we only find in hindsight, the lost time not allocated to those we love. It’s only in the final tocks that we realize in sorrow and despair that a voice is soon to be silenced, a touch to be missed, a pillar in our lives breaching as to give way to the tide of impermanence.
To this catastrophic unmooring of what we call normal, the opportunity for more time is lost, forever in this physical plane. I wish I could be offered more time with you dad. Now all I can do is try to be a decent human, a good person, for that God may again unite us when I too depart.
Watching you take your final hollowed breaths; I understood that your soul had since departed your body; but I still believe that your mind was connected to your spirit. Ascending beyond the clouds, traversing to an invisible space, the good place, and still the echoes of our goodbyes reaching and comforting you, sending you on your way to be again with those who took the long journey afore.
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” **
And rage you did dad. For four years your mighty vessel began to weaken and frail. Rage, Rage! You refused to let misfortune make you lame.
No! Rage, Rage! You refused to live a life you would not love, bound to restrictions that were not who you were…who you are.
“And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” **
Be you free from your pain, may your heart, that failed you on earth, be rebuilt and made immortal in the hands of God. For your heart carried so much weight, so much love, so much sadness and pain. Choosing to love means that we are bound to experience the depression of loss. It is a marriage of light and dark that cannot exist without each other, as the sun to the night.
Now father, be liberated from your anxieties, your fears; all that bound you, and at times led you down dreary roads. God did not intend us to be perfect, and nor did I ever want you to be. Imperfections define what it is to be human and genuine.
A flame will forever burn in your name. Marcellino Vincent, will forever be etched into the tapestry of who a Mendoza is; for without your intervention in my life, when I was but a child, orphaned by tragic circumstances, my son and daughter, would not walk the Earth today.
Without your guiding hands, this next generation of Mendoza’s would never have been. My wife and I would never have crossed orbit, had you not saved me all those decades ago. You’re the hero in this story dad. I will keep you alive in my home, because as a father I have learned that the greatest memorial that could ever be constructed is that of the stories told down to the children, that’s true Earthly immortality.
I will mourn you, I will miss you, for the rest of my life, and that’s okay, because that is how I know and will forever remember how amazing you are, to never forget the foundation in which you laid, selflessly with your own precious time, so that I may grow, explore and build.
Marcellino Vincent Mendoza
1957 – 2025
A life dedicated to helping others
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