That Would Be Me (dot net)

When I was thirteen my father, his second wife and their then two young children moved to the Dominican Republic, the country that shares the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean with Haiti. I saw him once from then until I was in my forties. I kept saying I need to visit him in order to reconnect, but it wasn’t until shortly after my mother died that I realized it was never going to happen unless I simply made the decision and did it.

I made all the travel arrangements, got my passport, took the appropriate time off from work, then realized I should probably have some command of Spanish before I set foot in the Spanish speaking country. I bought some tapes and books and set out to study. I was diligent. I set aside time each day to work on it. I repeated all the phrases on the tapes. I did this right up until I boarded the plane headed for Miami where I’d get my layover to the DR.

With all this work, the only Spanish that actually stuck in my mind was the rather obscure phrase, qué lástima, which means “what a pity.” I doubted I’d ever get to use this hard won knowledge.

My father and his wife Carol picked me up at the airport. On the long drive through Santo Domingo, the capital city, to La Romana, the costal town they lived in, I kept noticing large stores with huge, bright, windowed fronts; Estevez Muebles, Frank Muebles, Pedro Muebles, Albert Muebles. I mentioned to Dad that the Muebles family must be really large. He was confused. I mentioned all the stores. Muebles, he informed me, means “furniture”. It seems furniture stores are very profitable in the Dominican Republic. They sell furniture to people on “time payments” and when the people couldn’t keep up the payments (which happens often in a country with so many poor), they repossess, then sell it again. And again. Very lucrative. He and Carol had the good graces not to laugh too loudly at my misapprehension, but it did become a topic of humorous conversation with the family and many of the people I met while I was there.

I also told them of my attempt to learn Spanish, and the one phrase I’d mastered. Dad complimented me on my pronunciation.

The trip was wonderful. Reconnecting with my father and his wife and meeting my half-brother, who was already an adult, for the first time were special experiences, but the biggest benefit of the trip, one that still moves me to this day, was how willing my father was to allow me to say anything, ask any question, make any accusation I had about his absence in my life all those years. He answered honestly and compassionately and without judgement. It was infinitely easy to forgive him, and to forgive myself for harboring any resentment. I now have a grand relationship with him.

On one of the last days I was there, Dad, Carol, my brother Paul and I piled into the car to drive across the island to visit Dad and Carol’s oldest, Ann, who I had last seen when she was around five. She now had her own family with three small boys. We got to their house, traded hugs and chatter and I told the muebles story and shared my one Spanish phrase, the one I had no hope of ever being able to use. They all thought both stories were very funny. (Ann and Dad translated to the boys and gathered friends, none of whom spoke any English.) One of Ann’s boys even tried to teach me Spanish by telling me the proper name for things and making me repeat them. None of those words stuck, either, but you have to give the kid credit for trying.

Late that afternoon, while Ann was fixing a traditional Dominican meal, her husband Daryoush went out to buy some ice cream for desert. During dinner, he was called out on some business matter. Later that evening he hadn’t yet returned, so Ann brought out the ice cream and divided it among those present.

“What about Daryoush?” I asked, knowing that he had been especially looking forward to it.

“He’ll have to miss out, I guess.”

“Qué lástima,” I said.

Everyone cheered.

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Geoff Hoff is co-author of the best selling satirical novel Weeping Willow: Welcome to River Bend