On December 22, 2005 my father passed away. This is the last pic we have together, taken in the Fall of 2003, courtesy of Dr. Ivan San Martin, who at the time was doing a research on the life and work of the architects involved in the design and construction of Mexico´s National University San Angel Campus. He requested to interview my father, who was already sick with Parkinson and he promptly agreed. His desire to carry intelligent conversations and share anecdotes and some of his professional highlights with a young architect were not diminished.
The photo shows a corner of an exquisite world. Period furniture, Persian rugs, some Imari bowls and a Cantonese vase from his vast Chinese porcelain collection, the Academic drawings in the background, two of them made by his great grandmother, the crocheted armrest protections made by my mother and my grandmother, the chair in the foreground carved by my father before my birth. Success and fortune in life had came to him after pursuing activities he loved. Getting rich fast was never his goal. It was more important to him to do something meaningful and trust God for the reward, that always came in perfect timing.
Today four years after his passing away I feel comfort remembering us sitting together in the midst of that atmosphere that, seen from the perspective of my present reality, is a piece of a far away world in a far away time.
At the college art studio where I spent the last weeks painting on disciplined daily basis I set a chair for my father´s spirit. I needed to feel his closeness while fighting to master an assortment of palette knife slashes and scratches and the tricky lazy quickness of the acrylic paint. He had taught me since childhood the secrets of watercolors....soon I was doing my own version of the technique, but what I learned with him stuck. He painted hundreds of watercolors in my presence and the mastery of the brush and the color saturated drop are deeply embedded in my memory. Now acrylics were a different challenge but I was attempting again to find my own way to express the longing for a land at the same time eternal and long gone.
For some hours that peaceful, harmonious and creative environment became a quality time/space capsule to feel his memory happy and close to me. I chose a radio station that played Piano music: his favorite instrument. To show him I have not been stopped yet, even while in a foreign land starting anew from scratch with a lot of troubles in more than one side of my life. I had even resumed painting with the humor of dancing if the music catches my feet or singing along if I happen to know the lyrics. I felt the assurance of his presence there with me, touching my soul to tears when his physical presence could not longer touch my senses. Every day I left the studio feeling happy and renewed.
This is what those who passed by the corridor saw at a glance thru the glass in the door
No evidence that for some hours every day that room had become a space where we -his memory and me- were proving that love, respect, gratitude and remembrance cannot be separated by death.
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