Authors: Rosie Perez
• • •
Even though I was beginning to let things go, Seth and I would go over, but not often, maybe three, four times a year—I know. I was working a lot, but truth be told, the chaos in that house and the potential of a violent outburst disgusted me.
It was 1999. Seth had proposed. We had been together for years, and I didn’t really want to get married. Why? I don’t know. I guess I thought, if it ain’t broke … you know? Or maybe it was because I’d never seen a successful marriage and was scared. Anyway, we got engaged. Less than a year later, we began to plan the wedding.
We set the date for a Friday, then planned everything quickly. We were to marry in four weeks. Thinking about my mother’s side of the family, I was worried about exposing Seth and his family to all the possible drama. Seth was worried too. I told him that we should invite them, but that we shouldn’t give them too much time to conjure up some type of scheme. What can I say? These people had made me paranoid.
I called Kathy. I had missed her terribly and wanted to make peace. I told her about the engagement and asked her to tell Mom and everyone to come to the wedding in two days. I know. I couldn’t trust them, but felt they deserved to be there. Seth, Carmen, and everyone else disagreed. Kathy told me that she and my
youngest sibling would be there, but that Mom and everyone else didn’t want to go.
It was good to see Kathy and my other little sister. I was glad that at least they came to the wedding. Gosh, I did miss them, especially Kathy. Then the shit hit the fan.
In July 2000, the
Daily News
front page carried this headline: “Rosie, Her Mom, & AIDS … Activist Perez Shuns Mom Who’s Dying of the Disease.”
Say what? Not again! Fuck. When is this going to stop?! The truth about my difficult past also started to seep out again. If I hadn’t worked on myself up to that point, I probably would have fallen apart. Poor Seth. All he kept saying was, “I told you so!”
This was the worst kind of yellow journalism. And the piece was written by Juan Gonzalez, who was a former Puerto Rican Young Lord, an activist group from the ’60s and ’70s that fought for Puerto Rican justice—irony. I was disgusted by his so-called investigation. His defense was that he tried to call and get my side of the story. My side? Why should I have to comment on something that was fiction? Mr. Gonzalez should have done his homework before the newspaper printed the damn story. This should have been dismissed as what it was, tabloid yellow journalism.
The AIDS community and my dear friends Lianni Greaves, Laurie Fabiano, and Larry Adelman—God rest his soul—came to my defense, telling the press that I did in fact try to help my mother but the help was refused. And my accountant told the press that I had been giving her money throughout the years, but it didn’t matter. What was done was done and opinions had been formed.
I wanted Tia. I needed my father. They both came to visit and stayed with me at my house. It was great to have them there at the same time. We all just hung out, gossiped, told stories, cracked jokes. I loved being with them. I loved being bored with them. I got to cook with my father. It brought me so much joy, and I got to take
care of Tia, which brought even more joy. I’ll never forget having to bathe her. She was really sick with complications from her diabetes. I had to climb in the shower with her to help her clean herself and to help hold her up. When she turned around and saw me in my shower cap, she started cracking up. “Ga, ga, ga, ga, gaaaa! You look so stupid in that thing.” I laughed with her and told her, “Be quiet, you old woman, and lift up your arms.” It was an honor and I will cherish those moments forever.
After the fallout, despite this betrayal, I still went over to see my mother. To say it was a tense scene is an understatement, but Seth was with me most of the time. And sometimes my dad would go with me and I was able to get through it. The first time Dad and I went over to my little sister’s apartment, where Lydia was now living, Dad and I heard my half-brothers plotting: “She’s coming up! Get the camera! Call the press!”
Dad told me to wait downstairs. He was going in to handle everything. I told him that I wasn’t afraid of them anymore. I was sick and tired of their shit.
“Yeah, okay. Just wait there, please,” Dad told me.
Dad walked in, very calmly, greeting all of them with a smile. He told them that I wouldn’t come in until they put the video camera down. To my surprise, they listened to him. He had that effect on people. He told me to come up. I greeted everyone politely. Then he cooked everyone pigeon stew from the groceries we had brought over. While the food was simmering, I went to the back to be alone with Mom.
My dear Lord, she was so skinny. I knew it would be just a matter of days. She couldn’t look at me. Then she started to cry. I sat next to her, and she started to rock back and forth, still crying, holding my hands.
“You have to forgive me, Rosie. You have to! Please! For everything I’ve done! You have to forgive me!”
My heart sank.
“It’s okay, Mom. Please calm down.”
“No! You have to say it. Please, Rosie!”
I took a moment that seemed like forever. I was still angry, just being honest, but I didn’t want to be. I wanted this to stop, all the hate, all the anger, all the pain and hurt and the horrible past.
“I forgive you, Mom. I forgive you. I hope you can forgive me too.”
“I never wanted to hurt you. I love you, Rosie. I always loved you.”
A couple of weeks later, Mom was taken to Bellevue Hospital. She was in ICU for a couple of days. Seth and I were exhausted from going back and forth, keeping vigil. Carmen and Sixto came with us too. I stood by Mom’s bed with Carmen. She had tubes coming in and out of her, her face was swollen, her body emaciated. Carmen said a prayer over her, then told me to come and pray with her. I held Mommie’s hand. She looked up at me, slightly nodded her head, and blinked her eyes twice. “She just forgave you, Rosie. Did you see that?” said Carmen.
“Yes, I did.”
Seth wanted to drive out to the Hamptons that night, to the rented home of a friend, to get away. I didn’t. I wanted to stay. But I gave in. I felt I had put him through so much already that he deserved a break. As I was sitting out in the backyard by myself, I felt a strong wind pass through me—right through me. Now, I don’t believe in shit like that, but I knew that was my mother. I said out loud to myself, “She’s gone.”
Then the phone rang inside. Seth answered. He came out back. I looked at him and asked, “She’s gone, right?” He nodded yes.
There was a pain of regret and a feeling of compassion and empathy for my mother that shocked me. I regretted that I didn’t forgive her sooner. I regretted that we never talked about her childhood together. I regretted that I never knew or met her father. I understood her pain as a woman who had God-given talent but
couldn’t see it come to its full fruition because of her abusive marriage and her mental illness. Yet I felt so disconnected from her. Why? Why did I come to this so late?
• • •
Tia had become gravely ill around that same time. I was flying back and forth soon after Mom had passed to spend time with her. I didn’t want to lose her too before telling her everything I ever wanted to tell her and asking her everything about her life, which I did as much as possible. When I told her about feeling that wind rush through me when Lydia died, she smiled and told me that God had come into my heart and that was why I was open to feeling Lydia say good-bye. She told me that I needed to stop torturing myself—it was all over. Lydia was in a better place, and she loved me and forgave me. Then she quietly turned to me and said, “You should’ve took me to the Oscars. I was the one there for you, not your father.”
“But you said—”
“I know.”
I gently grabbed her hand. “Tia, I’m so sorry. You’re right, I should have insisted.”
“
Ay
, it’s okay. I just wanted to get that off of
de
chest. Ga, ga, ga, ga, ga!”
“Tia, why didn’t you ever let me buy you a house?”
“Really, I don’t know. That was stupid, right? Ga, ga, ga, ga, gaaa!”
Tia passed away eight months after Mom did, from diabetes. The grief and sorrow I felt was way more than I’d felt for my mother. As promised, she had a horse-drawn carriage at her funeral while The Beatles’ “Penny Lane” played in a loop at the service. I didn’t attend. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to remember her like that. And the pain of her not being here still hurts, every day.
• • •
It was 2006, I think. I was in a really great, happy place. Unfortunately, Dad wasn’t doing so well. We were in Puerto Rico to spend time with him. He’d had two strokes and was very ill. Carmen and Tito had gone to the beach with Ramon, my boyfriend at the time. Holding hands, Dad and I were watching back-to-back boring Westerns, which he so loved. He was tired, old, weak, and kept falling asleep. I tried to slip my hand out of his to get some fresh air out on the balcony, but he gripped it back and woke up.
“No. Don’t leave me. Please.”
I didn’t move.
“I miss Minguita.”
“I do too, Daddy.”
I stayed on that couch from one o’clock in the afternoon until six that night. He passed away four days later. God it hurt, still does.
His service lasted for four days. The wake took three days: the funeral director had to extend it because there were so many people calling and insisting that we wait until they came and paid their respects. One of Dad’s final wishes was that we drive around the entire town of Aguadilla on our way to the burial with a truck in front carrying two big woofer speakers blasting a certain song of his choosing. Daddy had given our brother Tito the CD prior to his passing. He refused to let any of us know what song he had chosen.
The whole town came out. When the procession began, Tito popped in the CD. “I did it my way” blasted out in Spanish. Carmen, Tito, and I all looked at each other and cracked up.
• • •
I miss Dad. I miss Tia even more.
I began this process to honor Tia. I wanted to thank her for raising me, for teaching me to love, for teaching me to let go, for
everything. She was and still is my greatest inspiration. I wanted to give back to her by telling our story and sharing the wisdom she gave me with the world. But I never imagined that this journey was going to give back to me.
I fell in love all over again with my father. Oh how happy I am that he never gave up trying to win me back. And it began with that stupid drunken confession and was sealed with that apology. I hope he knew how hard I fell for him. I think he did. To this day, I can’t hold back the emotions whenever I think about him.
I’m so glad Tia and Dad taught me the importance of family. My sister Carmen and I still have stupid silly fights but forgive each other in an instant. Tito still lives in Puerto Rico but we are in constant contact. And my cousins-sisters, we never lost touch and talk to and try to see one another as often as possible—especially Millie and Lorraine. And cousin Sixto, the one I almost went out with, well, he drives me crazy on a daily basis, but I love the pain in the ass—he is still one of my best friends. We all love each other very much and will forever have each other’s backs—even when we’re fighting. Ha!
And here’s the craziest shit of all. I never thought I’d find even more compassion for my mother. I got to see her in a deeper way than I had before. Gosh I cried for her all throughout this process. I needed that. I needed to release a lot of the pain that I thought was gone.
I also came to understand that I wasn’t the only casualty—especially after Tiara passed away from an accidental overdose way too early a couple of years ago and I didn’t have the chance to tell her that I loved her and forgave her. And most important, I didn’t have a chance to ask her to forgive me. My half-siblings on my mother’s side were victims too. They did horrible things, yes, but I’m not without sin. Okay, so you may say that what they did doesn’t compare to the mistakes I have made, but I have learned that it isn’t a contest. And I don’t want to keep score. We were kids
that were all abused and didn’t know how to articulate all the pain and anger. What happened when we were younger is a wash, forgiven, left in the past, as far as I’m concerned. Now, what happened when we all grew up, well, I’m finding forgiveness every day and hope the same for them. And I hope they are getting the help they need so they can break the cycle of pain, violence, and abuse and enjoy all that life offers. I’m so happy I made up with Kathy and that I’m still in touch with Amy. As for the rest, we may never be close, but they will always be in my heart. And my empathy for the kids in the Home has broken through years of suppressing it. I’m glad I took my time to tell my story. I’m glad I stopped judging myself for not being able to be completely honest about my past. I understand now that I wasn’t ready and that’s okay. This understanding really started when I saw Olga Lopez and Mita fifteen-plus years ago. Olga expressed how it took her years to even tell her kids about the Home. We were able to share and cry and laugh, knowing we went through something very extraordinary. But not for nothing, I could have done without the Home and Sister Renata beating the crap out of me—you know what I’m saying? But I must admit the Home gave and taught me so much. Yes, it would have been better if I was left with Tia, but Saint Joseph’s Catholic Home for Children was most definitely a better choice than being raised by Mom—gosh, that’s so sad, but true.
Yes, it’s very hard to go there. But when you do, you will find yourself along the way … and I hope your hair looks fabulous while doing it—holla!
My sincere and many thanks to David Kuhn, Suzanne O’Neill, and to the staffs at Kuhn Projects and Crown Archetype. Now, I know I was a walk in the park, but let’s be honest here for a moment, there were times when things got … just a little bit heavy, but all is forgiven—ha! Seriously, David and Suzanne, your help, wisdom, and most important, patience were deeply appreciated. Thanks for enduring and supporting a new writer.
I want to thank the following people for being there for me. If I have left out anyone—my apologies. You all played a part in helping me write this book, whether you knew it or not … even you, Sixto.