And the gods wept with joy

...when the mortals finally figured out what to do with gravity. That's somebody's tagline off MTBR that I commandeered because it was so perfect. For the gods did indeed weep then. As did I this afternoon, after the pain of falling over the bars face first into the dirt and bruising my left ribcage, knee and calf. Ouch. That was about one and a half hours into one of dGangi's death marches. But I kept riding. For the full 3 and a half hours, and, as Adam Sandler puts it, it was not "at a medium pace".

Yet I didn't hurt that bad. It was cold and wet, and my left lung, knee and calf were at 75% at best...yet I just wanted to just keep hammering. So I did, and as always, it wasn't that bad after I started riding again. And, the pizza and beer sure tasted that much better back at dGangi's house as we watched the Ravens finish off the Dolphins.

Then evening came. And with it, the throbbing pain of a bruised rib and a deeply bruised calf. And some mysterious scrapes and scratches that appeared under my leg warmers, even though there were no holes ripped in the fall. Interesting how that works. A few Advils later, I was almost whole, except for the whole breathing and laughing thing. Oh well, I was off to my parents for some good South American cooking.



I don't know what it is about my mother and cooking. My mother was born in Santiago, Chile, with Spanish roots and emigrated to the US when she was 20. As long as I can remember, she has never been able to cook. Growing up I remember thinking, when will this delicious Hispanic feast appear? Isn't that what my people do? Eat well? Well apparantly not. And at first, I thought it was just her. But my trip to visit my folks for dinner that night was actually to meet and visit with Perla, my mother's childhood friend that was up from Santiago for a few weeks. And she couldn't cook either. (Well to be fair, the chicken and empanadas weren't bad...)

Come to find out that until 4 years ago when my mom finally went back to Santiago after 34 years, they hadn't seen seen each other since my mom left in 1970. I wouldn't have known. They looked at each other as they told me their shared childhood memories as if they had never missed a beat. The only difference they said, was that now they looked like their mothers. Come to find out, they met when they were 13. Perla the rich kid, my mom the poor kid, that happened to go to church together. They hit it off immediately, and were apparently inseparable until mom left for the states one day. I wonder what it must have been like for my mother, growing up in the slums of Santiago in the 50's and 60's. She worked from the time she was 8 years old and has never known anything different. By the time she was 20, she was in charge of payroll and what would now be called human resources for the MacGregor plant in Santiago. They produced baseball equipment; bats, gloves, etc for all the summer-obsessed kids back in the states. My dad, who was a baseball player in those years, may have owned a glove manufactured there. I remember it was a lefty MacGregor first baseman's glove. Maybe?

38 years. That's a long time, in terms of a human lifetime. Before Perla and my mom re-connected, we hosted her parents at our house when they came to the US for a few weeks. This was about 28 years ago, when it was just me and my younger brother. The others hadn't been born yet. Perla's parents, the Garcia's, came to Arizona so they could be sealed in marriage in the Mormon temple in Mesa, Arizona. At the time, there was no temple in South America. So they traveled up here and stayed with the only person they knew in the US and her family.

I don't remember much about the Garcia's visit, just that they spoke only Spanish and my mom had to translate everything. But I do remember a few things. The husband, Ricardo Garcia, always had a big smile and just seemed happy to be alive. I don't remember his wife as well, but she seemed to just as happy herself. I don't remember exactly how long they stayed, but I do remember the moment they got back from the temple with my parents. I remember the somber, contemplative silence. I remember the muted looks, like they had just experienced something supernatural. But most vividly, I remember the tears as Ricardo and my father embraced as the recollection of what just happened eventually overwhelmed him. I remember his wife and my mom looking on, holding hands. And I remember the gift Ricardo gave my father that evening. It was a solid gold ring, a family heirloom. It was large and solid and was of Incan origin, with an intricate design on the face. That ring never left my dad's right hand. He loved that ring, and what it meant. Eventually, we all decided later, I was to inherit that ring. But that will not happen. A few years ago, it noticed my dad stopped wearing it.

Ricardo Garcia died in 1994. He had several daughters, Perla being one of them, but the oldest was a son, also named Ricardo. Ricardo Jr. is a successful and respected doctor in Santiago, having done well for himself just like his father. 4 years ago, when my parents first went down to Santiago, they visited the Garcia family. They caught up and traveled together. That trip was the first time Perla and my mom had seen each other in 34 years. But as they said the other night at dinner, (over bad South American food) it was as if they never missed a beat. It was then that I found out what happened to the ring.

Ricardo Jr. had a birthday party while my parents were down there. Being the aforementioned successful and respected doctor, he had a large circle of friends and collegues. As expected, my parents showed up for the rather large gathering. According to my mother, it was a festive occasion, the type my dad usually shys away from, being the introverted man he is. But something happened that night that just floored my mom and guests who heard what happened next. As Ricardo was opening gifts and reveling in the time with friends and family, my father stepped up and asked if he could tell a story. With my mom translating, he recanted the story of the ring and of the man who gave it to him, the circumstances, and what it meant to him all those years. How powerful a symbol it was for him, as a young father at the time. And then, on Ricardo's 60th birthday, he returned the ring to the son of the man it had come from.

The ring had come full circle. There was not a dry eye in the house. My father was fulfilled.

And the gods wept with joy.