It's a very distinct smell. Algae growing unchecked on cement and in rain gutters. It's a smell that I only come across when vacationing somewhere tropical. It's a smell from my childhood summers that were spent in Trujillo Alto.
The memory came back to me as I watched Junior's TikTok about his dying father. Funny that his name is Junior. That was what they called my father. In the coincidences of the universe, the timing of this video crossing my feed is not lost on me. Junior flew home to Ponce because his father had a stroke. He finds his parent's home in disrepair, just old and run down.
It brought to mind the memories of my grandparent's home and the homes of relatives that surrounded them. They didn't live in some neatly laid out neighborhood, or at the end of some cul-de-sac. They lived at the bottom of a hill where row upon row of houses crisscrossed their way up alongside a very basic concrete staircase that ran along the side of my grandparent's house. A house my father claimed to have helped build back in the late 60's or early 70's.
I thought about how I just flew from one "ghetto" to another. My grandparents didn't have a car, so there were no summers spent just going to the beach. We had to rely on rides from other relatives. Richer relatives. I could always feel the judgments, the pity. I guess he could feel it too.
I was never told he was dying. We were just told he was dead. I wonder if I would have flown down. If I would have had anything to say or to feel.
I watched Junior speak about the fucked up aspect of having to adult your way through the death of a parent while in literal paradise and having someone to navigate that with.
I don't know, something about it just punched me in the heart and reminded me how alone I am sometimes.
Today was a good day until it wasn't.
My condolences to anyone who has lost someone.
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