Stick a fork in me...

1.        Stick a fork in me, I’m done.  I’ve been drinking for a few hours now and I’m feeling kind of tired.  It’s Saturday, I just got paid and it’s been a long week so my uncle and I decided to barbecue when we got home from work today. I’ve been staying with my aunt and uncle here in Channelview for a few months now since I started working here in Houston. It’s okay I guess, but I really miss my baby. She’s back home in the Valley and expecting our first child. It has been a tough adjustment but there is a big difference between working for minimum wage in Harlingen driving an armored car and building wooden crates for nine bucks an hour here. Though a couple of dollars doesn’t seem like a lot right now, it’s the opportunity of making more in the future that keeps me here, three-hundred some odd miles away from my family. Mirna is due any day now and as the days go by I get even more anxious. I worry if this has been a bad decision on my part. I know I’m not abandoning my babe and child. On the contrary, I’m here to ensure a brighter future for both of them. Still, when I lie awake on my cot in this dark, unfinished room in my uncle’s house I can’t help but wonder… and I pray, “Lord please guide me through these uncertain times and bless the choices I have made. Please give me peace of mind in knowing that the heartache and distance we endure right now will only make us stronger. Father, bless my wife and give her comfort. Bless my child that she may be born healthy and bless our love and bond that it may grow stronger, Amen”.
I haven’t seen my babe in about a month now. I can’t afford to be driving down every week to visit. I usually keep twenty or thirty dollars for myself each week and send the rest of my paycheck down to her. The last time she was up here we decided that I needed a pager just in case something happened and she needed to get a hold of me. We can’t afford a cell phone so a twenty-five dollar beeper should suffice, still even that seems like a lot of money. The guys in the warehouse give me a hard time because I’m constantly looking at my pager. They joke that I’ve never had anything so technically advanced that I’m having a hard time trying to figure out how it works…assholes! Truth is, before Mirna and I split up last year things were going pretty well. We were both working, we had our own vehicles and cell phones and were pretty happy. Then fate reared it’s ugly head and with the help of some loose tongues, managed to drive a wedge deep between us.
We parted ways for a few months and would have probably never gotten back together except for a little package that she was carrying at the time that neither of us knew about. Of course, when she told me that she was pregnant my first thought was that it wasn’t mine. How could it be, we’ve been split up! What amazed me was how quickly this thought left my mind. I wrote it off as a knee-jerk reaction to the news and then cleared my head of it. When I asked Mirna, “now what?” what she said blew my mind. “Now nothing, this doesn’t change anything. I’m having the baby and that’s that”. What the fuck??? “Okay, calm down and let’s think and pray about this”, I heard a little voice saying. I knew a solution would come but at the moment I couldn’t think straight. Next she told me that she was moving to Colorado with her sister. “Is that right, well before you leave I want a divorce. I don’t want to be tied with you by long-distance”.  Yeah, nice move, that will go over smoothly. Too late, the words were out there. Her reaction?, she just turned around without saying a word and walked back into her mom’s house.
I hate running through these memories, they make it hard to sleep. I think about the stupid things that I said and did and I wonder how I could have handled it better. I conclude that everything happened the way it should have in order to bring us to where we are today. I know, it’s just a piss-poor attempt at trying to make me feel better but still, something about that thought feels right. Only time will tell.
In the meantime, this bed is feeling cold and the room seems to be getting darker. It’s almost midnight and I’ve got a good buzz on from the Bud Lights I drank. I’ve got the smell of smoke on me from the barbecue pit. I should take a bath but I’m too tired, I’ll shower in the morning. I wonder what my babe is doing right now. I miss her so much….man, this room is cold.

2.          “Rene…Rene…Junior, wake up. You’ve got a phone call. It’s your mom”. I hear my cousin Paula’s voice from a distance. I know she’s calling me but I can’t seem to snap on my own. Was I asleep? I couldn’t be, I was just sharing an ice cream with Mirna in the parking lot by the mall in…Harlingen?  “What? Pavi, did you call me?” What time is it? My head is still spinning from the beers and from getting yanked out of slumber. “Phone, Rene. I think Mirna’s on the way to the hospital”. It takes me a second to digest what Paula is telling me and another second to jump out of bed once it’s processed. I glance at the clock on my way to the phone, it’s just past midnight. “Hello?” it takes a moment for my mom to respond and it feels like an eternity, “Hello!” I say again, then I hear her familiar voice.  “Junior, it’s me, your mom. I’m calling to let you know that Mirna has gone into labor. She’s already on her way to the hospital. Her mother asked me to call you and let you know. Are you coming?” I’m wide awake now. My buzz is gone and I feel a heightened sense of awareness. I hear the ticking of the clock as if it were coming from inside my head. The static on the phone line is deafening. My cousin is standing there staring at me with one hand on her hip and the fingers of the other half-covering her mouth as if not wanting to interrupt. “I’m on my way. Tell Mirna I’m on my way and tell her not to worry… tell her that everything is going to be fine… tell her that I love her… tell her...tell her that I’m on my way”. I hang up the phone and forget that my cousin is still standing there. To her it may look like I’m studying the phone cord but really I’m just lost in thought as I plan my next move. “So, what did she say?” Paula’s voice snaps me out of limbo for the second time tonight. I give her the brief run down of what is going on and then hurry back to my room. “Are you okay to drive?” she asks. “I’m fine, I’m alright. I’ll call you as soon as I get to the hospital.” As if the hospital is just around the corner or down the road. Well it is down the road, about six hours and three-hundred fifty miles down the road. 
         I stand in this freezing room still trying to get my thoughts in order. What do I need to grab, my shoes, my wallet, my watch? Nothing else really, I had already planned for this. I’ve kept a duffle bag behind the seat of my truck with extra clothes, shoes and forty bucks for a tank of gas just in case I got the call while away from home. I head to the bathroom to splash some water on my face and think, man I should’ve opted for that shower earlier. Oh well no time for that now. My aunt and uncle are awake now and standing by the front door waiting to wish me good luck. I give them a hug and head out wondering what I’ve forgotten. It doesn’t matter, nothing else matters at this moment. I hop in my truck and suddenly remember something very important that I’m forgetting. I close my eyes, bow my head and pray. “Lord, it’s me again…”

3.          October 12, 1997, 12:24 am. It’s a cool, clear night. Nowhere near as cold as my room had seemed earlier. What the hell is up with that room? I just filled up the tank in my little Nissan pickup and I’m heading south. I’ve made this trip many times and know that it should take me no more than five and a half to six hours to get to Harlingen. The buzz I had earlier is long gone but I know that the alcohol is still in my system and could make me drowsy, so I picked up a cup of coffee, a couple of cokes, some chewing gum and sunflower seeds to keep me busy and hopefully awake. Driving through Houston at midnight on a weekend is not much different then driving through during rush hour, plenty of traffic and lots of tail-lights. But once I get out of town the interstate is pretty deserted save for the big rigs hauling-ass down the road. Now that I’m en-route, my mind clears up and my thoughts come back to my babe and baby. I can only imagine what she is going through right now. I thank God that her mom is there to help her along since this will be our first baby. Well, second…kind of. Brandy would’ve been a year old right now if she would’ve been born. But the good Lord decided we weren’t ready yet at the time…
         We lived in a little one bedroom, second floor apartment for a while when we were expecting our first child. Brandy Renee was the name that we had picked out for her. We were so excited. My young bride wasn’t much of a cook at the time (don’t tell her I said so) but she usually managed to have a hot meal waiting for me after work. On occasion I would call and tell her not to cook and I would grill up some chicken for the two of us for dinner. We had a lot of fun in our little paradise in the sky. We didn’t have much money or material things so we had nothing to get in the way of each other. We were madly in love and not shy to show it…often. In the bedroom, in the kitchen, in the living room, bathroom, in the stairwell. Funny story: our front door was actually at the stairwell landing downstairs. Once you came in the door to the stairs you were literally inside our apartment. Well one day we’re getting busy on the sofa like it’s going out of style when we hear someone coming up the stairs. It was a cop who was looking for the previous tenant but didn’t bother knocking. He said he didn’t think THAT was our front door and thought he would be knocking on a door upstairs. Instead…well needless to say that door remained lock at all times after that. 
         Early one morning while I was driving my armored car route I got a call on my cell phone. It was my mother-in-law telling me that Mirna’s water had broken and she had been rushed to the hospital. “What? Why? What happened?”  She was fine this morning when I left. She wasn’t complaining of any discomfort or anything. It was a routine morning like any other. “Okay, I’m on my way”. I called my boss on the radio and told him I had to leave, then had my partner drop me off at the hospital, the same hospital I was driving to now in the middle of the night. When I got there I found Mirna alone sitting in a wheelchair next to an admittance office. The clerk had her filling out paperwork. I blew my top. I asked them why in the hell was she sitting there and not in a bed in the emergency room getting looked at? They finally put her in a room and a doctor came to examine her. The doctor fired up a sonogram machine and began scanning my wife’s abdomen for sign’s of life. There were none. Quite bluntly and without any tact, she (the Doc) looked at us and said, “At this time I can no longer detect a heartbeat”. Immediately we both broke down into tears. I folded over my wife as she lay on the bed and we just held each other and cried together. The pain and heartbreak was intense. Our happy little paradise had suddenly been torn to pieces and laid lifeless within my wife’s womb. We stared at the motionless picture on the monitor screen for what seemed like hours. Telling our baby how much we loved her and how happy she had made us these last few weeks. Mirna was devastated and was never quite the same again. Some of her light died that day along with Brandy. Her eyes lost some of their sparkle and her glow dimmed a bit. I, however, was having a whole different set of issues. Soon my sorrow turned to anger. I asked God why he had done this to us, how he could be so selfish as to take our baby away, but there was no answer. I felt dark and cold inside. Slowly my anger was turning into hatred. I was growing distant from the love of my life and I was cursing my creator. The days to come were spent largely in silence, each barely aware of the others presence. I would come home to find my babe sitting on the sofa hugging a pillow and staring at the floor. Without a word I would just walk by her and into the bedroom. I would sit in a corner and cry with my head in my knees until it was time to go to bed. Over and over I repeated the same question; why, why, why. Still there was no answer.

4.          The coffee is gone and I’m half-way down the first Coke. I’m feeing pretty good but my head is getting heavy. I’ll pop a piece of chewing gum, that’ll help me stay awake. I’ve been on the road now for a couple of hours. I think I’m somewhere just north of Victoria. I hit a patch of fog a while ago that slowed me down some and it’s starting to drizzle on and off. Oh well, I’ll just take it easy and keep chugging along. The last thing I want now is to have an accident or a break-down and not make it to the Valley at all. This little truck has got some miles on it. Just over 250k but it’s still going strong. My dad bought this truck from my brother and then he gave it to me. That’s my dad, never thinking of himself and doing everything he can for his family. I can only hope to be half the provider for my wife and kids that my father was for mom and me. He sacrificed more than just material things for himself. He missed out on a lot of home life while he was away. My dad has been a truck driver for most of his adult life, as such, we would only see him one weekend every couple of weeks. The rest of the time he was on the road. Now that I’m all grown up and have a life of my own, my dad often takes mom on trips with him. Mom asked us if we wanted to move out of our little apartment and move in with them. Since they were both going to be gone more often, she would feel better if someone was at the house to keep an eye on the place. So we agreed and moved out of our little one-bedroom, upstairs loft and back into my parent’s home. Things had started to get better for us a bit. We had started talking and smiling more and quite frankly, moving out of that place that held so strong a memory was probably the best thing we could do. Little did we know that we were taking our first step to an even rockier event in our lives.           
         So we had been staying at my parent’s house for a couple of months when, as I mentioned earlier, fate reared its ugly head.  We had a huge fight and wound up going our separate ways for a while. I continued with my day job and my weekend gigs playing drums for a Tejano band and Mirna continued with her job at the motel. We spoke on and off every now and then… we couldn’t avoid each other if we tried since we lived next door to each other. She quit coming to our dances and everyone asked about her constantly. “I don’t know and don’t give a fuck either”, was usually my response. Of course, I was putting up a front and trying to pretend that I didn’t miss her but I wasn’t fooling anyone. I was completely heart-broken. The love of my life was right next door but yet so far away. I let the bullshit get the best of me and now I was all alone. Even the music we were playing on the weekends was losing its shine. I was on a downward spiral and I couldn’t regain control. No matter what I tried I couldn’t get our lives in order. Every night I’d go to bed alone. I would cry till I couldn’t any more then I would get on my knees… “Father… umm Hi, it’s me. Got a minute?”

5.           I just passed Refugio a while ago. I had to stop to get rid of all that coffee and Coke I’ve been drinking. It’s a little past 4 o’clock in the morning and I’m really feeling tired now. It has been pouring down rain for about twenty minutes now and it doesn’t look like it’s gonna stop any time soon. I’ve had to slow down quite a bit because of the weather and I’ve already seen a least one accident. I hope this shit clears up soon. I’m losing a lot of time on the road. Still, none of this compares to what my baby is probably going through right now. Man, I’d give my left nut to have a cell phone right now. I keep thinking about Brandy and I pray that we don’t have to go through that again. The pain of losing our first baby and then the separation we went through was too much for us to bear. Our relationship has been very fragile since we got back together. I guess we’re just being cautious and taking it easy. At times it seems we’re both trying too hard to make it work and we need to just take a step back and slow down.
         A few weeks before we came up to Houston for a visit, Mirna decided she wanted to come to one of our gigs. Either she decided or I convinced her, I don’t remember but the bottom line is that she showed up. I was so happy to see her, as was everyone else. She didn’t stay long but it was a first step. The next gig she came by again and we talked for a good long while. The third time was the charm, after the show she said she didn’t feel like going home. I was bold enough to suggest we get a motel room and she agreed. It was like we were dating again and didn’t want anyone to know what we were up to. I called my mom to let her know that I wasn’t coming home and she called her parents too. So now we were involved in this boyfriend-girlfriend like relationship and it was fun. We still hadn’t moved back in together but at least we were moving towards one another. I guess we both understood that we still needed to leave some space in between. A couple of weeks past by and my vacation time was coming around. I suggested that we go visit my family in Houston for a week and she was all for it. That was in mid-July of ’97, I haven’t called San Benito home since.

6.          Now I know I’m not going to make it. I’m sitting in the rain just outside of Corpus Christi. There’s an accident up ahead and all the lanes are closed. I can’t believe how many cars are backed up at this hour. It’s like an H-town traffic jam. We’re not going anywhere for a while. I’m tired of listening to the static on the radio and I’m freaking dying for a cigarette. I keep replaying the night’s events in my head. From the last beer I had before going to bed to trying to remember if I’d forgotten anything after I left. Guess what, I did forget something. I forgot to tell my uncle to drop by my boss’s office and let him know that I would be out for a few days.  But that’s cool, I’m sure Augie will say something. If not my boss will come out and ask where the hell I am when I don’t report in.  Bill Haese is the warehouse manager. Pretty nice guy until you catch him in a bad mood. I made quite an impression on him when I got hired on. When Mirna and I came to visit in July, my uncle Agustin (Augie) told me they were hiring warehousemen at his job. I asked how much they paid and was interested when I found out it was considerably more than I was making in the Valley. So I said “What the hell, I’ll go talk to the boss-man and see what’s up”.  The next morning I drove Augie to work and I went in to talk to Bill. He asked what I wanted and I said “a job”. He told me I had to go through a temp service and blah-blah-blah. I said, “Look, you’ve got work available and I’m available for work. How much more do we need?” I guess he liked that I was straight up with him and sent me to the temp agency to fill out an application. As soon as I was done there I headed back to the warehouse and got to work. So the only problem now was that I still had a full time job back home. I made a call to my boss in Harlingen and advised him that I wouldn’t be coming back. I thanked him and told him that my gun and badge were in the back of the armored car. That was the end of my career in security transports and the start of my career in the oil and energy industry. One last problem that we needed to address now; what about Mirna and the baby?  We didn’t have a home in Houston and we weren’t living together in the Valley. She would have to go back to San Benito and stay with her mom until I could make enough money to get a place of our own here. In the meantime, I can bunk at my uncle’s house. They were nice enough to offer me the little room in the back while I got on my feet. So it was settled and it was too late to undo. I had a new job and had quit my old. Mirna had gone back to her mom’s house in the Valley where she could be looked after until the baby came. Talk about nervous though. Was this the right thing to do? Was I losing my freaking mind? Why quit a steady job and uproot myself? Why put this distance between myself and my expecting wife? Why??? Yulissa Danielle Cruz, that’s why. The little baby that I’m driving to meet is the reason for all that I do. Every bruise, tear, aching bone and sore muscle are for her. What kind of a future can I offer her if I keep doing what I’ve been doing all these years? What would my father think of me if I didn’t try to better my family’s situation? He busted his ass to give us what little he could. He shouldn’t expect anything less of me.

7.          Well the rain has stopped and all the cars around me are rumbling back to life. It’s just before 5 a.m. and I’m grinding my truck into first gear. I really hope this is the last time I have to stop. I could’ve been in Raymondville by now. Now, I’ve got some serious time to make up. Never mind the weather, the fuel, the police… it is hammer down till I get to Valley Baptist in Harlingen. The only thing on my mind is getting to my babes. It is killing me not being able to talk to anyone to find out what is going on. To let them know that I am okay and still on the road. Talk about feeling helpless. Not that I could do anything once I’m there but hopefully, just knowing that I am there will help my babe get through this. I draw strength from Mirna and I hope I do the same for her, although she is very strong and very independent. I guess that was one of the things that drew me to her. She may not admit it or even know it, but she is much stronger than she knows. The last couple of years have certainly proven that to be the case. Our short marriage, long separation, the loss of our first child, the stresses of work and college, it all adds up but she (we’ve…) always managed to come through it with a strong attitude and a prayer in our hearts. This is exactly what gives me confidence, knowing that we’ve been through some very hard times but have always come out on top. “Everything happens for a reason”, I strongly believe that. And although we never really know what that reason is at first, God always shows us his plan at the end. I tell myself that we are always exactly where the man upstairs wants us to be…where we need to be. Even though we may not understand it or question why. Like what reason is there for me to be sitting in dead traffic in a storm in the middle of the night when I really should be by my wife’s side right now. But thinking about it, if I hadn’t slowed down due to the fog earlier that could’ve been me wrapped up in the accident in the rain. So I let it go and move on to the next challenge which at the moment happens to be a race against the clock as it were. Lucky for me I’m not feeling sleepy anymore. Dawn is cracking and with every mile that passes I’m getting more excited. My spirits are being lifted just as is the darkness. I wish I could put my foot through the floor of this little truck but I must stay in control. I can’t control the weather or other drivers but I need to keep myself in check. Through it all I still keep coming back to the same thought…”I wonder how my girls are doing?” I wonder if my daughter has already been born or is my babe still in labor, have there been any complications…this not knowing is killing me but I need to not think about it for now. Find a good radio station, should still be able to pickup the Tejano stations from Corpus…nothing but static. Ok, switch to the CD changer…Eric Clapton…good call.

8.          “I tried to love for years upon years, but you refuse to take me for real. It’s time you saw what I want you to see that I’d still love you if you’d just love me…” Love that song, Promises by Eric Clapton, great album too, Time Pieces. Right now my time piece is telling me that I’m running out of time. Just past 7:00 a.m. and I’m crossing Raymondville, must be some kind of new slow record for this trip. It wouldn’t be until hurricane Rita years later that this record would be shattered. Took us 18 hours that time to get to the Valley, but I digress. I think of the entire trek from Houston to the RGV, this is the stretch that I hate the most because I know I’m just about there but I can’t speed up the clock to be there NOW. I also know how tough the cops around these parts can be. Can’t go one mile over the speed limit cuz they’ll get me. So once again I’m forced to back off the throttle and slow it down. I tell myself that it’s okay, slow and easy does it but I don’t sound to convincing. A few miles up the road my entire world is waiting for me. A new life is about to be born and a whole new chapter in our lives is being inked. Just as the day dawned on me earlier so is a new beginning dawning for us. A perfect little nucleus of a family upon which my entire world will now revolve around. Hang on babe, I’m coming, I’m almost there. Daddy’s coming Yuli, can’t wait to meet you.

9.          Handicapped parking, reserved parking, where the hell can I park? And what the hell are all these people doing this early in the morning at the hospital? Here’s one, finally. I shut off my little Nissan and as much as I want to jump out and run inside there’s one more thing I need to do before I get out. “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit... Father, Thank you for letting me arrive safely. Thank you for giving my little pickup the strength to make this very important journey without a problem. Thank you for granting me the serenity and self-control I required to be patient. Thank you for this beautiful morning and thank you for the blessings you have bestowed on us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”  I shoot out of my truck and haul ass up to the front doors. A quick thought enters my mind, “Hey, I was born here too, 28 yrs ago, up in one of those floors,” and the thought is gone as soon as I enter the doors. I head straight for the front desk to ask for directions and they point me towards the elevators. Man, I hadn’t noticed how much my hands were shaking and my fingers are freezing! The elevator stops and the doors open, the sign directly in front of me reads Maternity. I ask at this nurse’s station for Mirna Cruz and they direct me to her room. I want to run but I must remain composed, my heart is racing, my vision is sharper than ever, my ears pickup every squeak of my shoes, every echo in the hallway and every ticking of the clock on the wall, which incidentally is telling me that it is exactly 07:30 hours. I hear a baby’s cry coming from somewhere but I can’t tell exactly from where. Is it my daughter? Are these the first sounds that I ever hear my daughter make? But wait, that would mean that she’s already here and I missed it. She beat me to the finish line? The door to the room is open, and as I get closer all the sounds are getting louder…including the crying! My heart is pounding so hard that I think it may burst out of my chest at any second. As I enter the room the scene is surreal. There is a lot of commotion. There are two separate groups of nurses and doctors huddled around on two separate areas of the room. Straight ahead I can make out my wife on a bed with a number of nurses tending to her. Standing next to her is her mom. My first thought is “holy crap, Mirna looks like my truck probably feels right now”. My poor baby, and I thought I had a rough night. Her mom looks at me and smiles. Mirna looks at me as if I’m not really standing there. Slowly her tired gaze changes but I can’t really tell if it’s a look of relief, of longing, or of “WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN!” Directly to my left, as I walk towards Mirna’s bed, is a small army of nurses and techs. They all seem to be very busy and all are shouting orders back and forth. I can’t see what it is that they’re all huddled around but I can hear it, the unmistakable cry of a newborn child. I go straight to Mirna’s side, grab her hand and kiss her on the forehead, “I’m here ma, I made it”…she cries. My attention is drawn back to the nurses tending to the baby. I catch small glimpses of my baby as the techs shuffle around but what is most noticeable is the set of lungs. With every breath and cry my heart is being etched. I have yet to hold my daughter and already I would kill or die for her. Every sound she makes is a melody of music in my ears that says I love you Daddy. I can’t contain myself, what’s the hold up? Is she okay, why so many nurses, what’s the problem? At that exact moment one of the nurses from that group turns and walks towards me with something in her hand. She asks, “Are you the daddy?”, “Yes, I’m the father”. BANG! Like a ton of bricks it hits me, I’m the father, I’m the daddy, that is my baby… what? Oh my God. While these thoughts are running through my head the nurse is pinning something on my shirt. It’s a big round pin-up button with a small, inked foot print and the date written on it. I’m staring down at the pin oblivious to everything else around me. I’m studying every line and wrinkle and vaguely here someone ask, “Do you want to hold her, I don’t think you’re wife has the strength right now”. “What?” I look up and see a bundled up little blanket with a little face sticking out wearing a small beanie-cap. It’s my daughter, it’s Yulissa. It’s my sunrise and sunset, my heart and soul, my very reason to exist, my strength and my weakness, my life and my death. I take my baby in my arms for the very first time. The bond is instantaneous. I feel her warmth and her weight and it feels like the most natural thing in the world to me. I study her face and her rosy cheeks. I kiss her forehead and her tiny, plump lips. I touch the tip of her nose with my finger and she squirms a bit. I turn my face upwards and thank my Father once again for this blessing. I bring my face close to hers and I whisper “Hi mamas, I’m your daddy and I’m very happy to meet you.”


This story has been 13 years in the making. It may not make sense to everyone but it makes a world of sense to one father.  Happy Birthday Yuli, Daddy loves you very much.
-Rene Cruz