I AM PREPARING FOR DEATH

I'm preparing myself for death as I near my 70th birthday. My father lived until he was 87 and my mother is 90, so maybe I should be more optimistic, but I've never been more confused, fearful and angry at any time in the previous 68 years with COVID-19 haunting us, the economy dramatically declining and Trump sowing hate and division at every opportunity in order to win an undeserved second term with the blood of 160,000 American dead dripping from his hands. With only disdain in his heart, he shoots us the middle finger.

I live with Claudia and my youngest son Michael. My step-son Darío just moved to San Antonio to live with his sister Karina who is finishing her last year at dental school at UT/San Antonio. He has found a job as an apprentice electrician at the airport. My oldest sons, Carlos and Joaquin, are gainfully employed, the former serving water as a Culligan Man throughout the Valley and the latter serving beer to HEB and liquor stores throughout Austin. They could have been doctors or lawyers, but, like their ancestors, they have found fulfillment among their blue-collar  brothers. They have plenty of time to pursue painting and writing.

As I said, I'm in my usual blue mood waiting for the end. I believe that when you are dead, you are dead although I have a lingering trepidation that there might be a hell inculcated into me as a result of my Catholic upbringing. Nuns telling five-year-old children that they could burn forever if they missed Sunday mass can have a traumatic effect on an innocent that leaves him trembling in permanent paranoia until he exhales his last breath.

Siddhartha Gautama, before he became the Buddha, was an Indian prince who knew nothing but luxury, but wealth could not blind him to the grim reality that surrounded him. He could not find tranquility knowing that man grew old, became sick and died. These troubling thoughts inspired him to forge a philosophy that would imbue him with contentment throughout his life. Ultimately, he wanted to die peacefully.

I have started down that last stretch to oblivion. I will never attain the Buddha's transcendent state. I am 99.99% carnal and .01 spiritual. In the same manner as my age, the numbers don't lie. I am an animal and I will rot like a dog. But that doesn't mean I can't begin laying a foundation for my departure.

I possess nothing more than my clothes, a laptop, a guitar and a tennis racket. I move light. I have five large, plastic boxes containing my published books, my writings, newspaper clippings and many other mementos from my three son's first shoes to their own initial stabs at art.

I have been looking at photos of my parents when they were young as well as photos of my boys when they were babies. I have been reading many past issues of different publications to which I have contributed. So many meaningless controversies and so many dead actors. I feel like I have been at a week-long wake as I have discarded and saved these tangible recollections.

Those that I have kept, I've placed in two plastic containers, one for Carlos and Joaquin from my second marriage and another for Michael from my third. I hope I have left good memories with my step-children Karina and Darío. I have been staring at death and time straight in the face and I am shaken backtracking through the past. So much doesn't seem possible, but I am bidding farewell and that is unnerving in itself.

I am at the crossroads. After 45 years of waging the noble war against ignorance, poverty and corruption as a teacher and a journalist in our community, the cockroaches have only multiplied. You kill one Islamic terrorist and there are a hundred waiting to take his place. You kill one Mexican drug lord and there are a hundred waiting to take his place. You eliminate all the politicians at City Hall, the county, the school district and the other elective entities, only to witness the incompetence and impudence of their successors.

Matamoros is gone. It would take a hurricane to sweep its blood-soaked streets clean. There is no reason to believe that the violence in Mexico engendered by corruption, poverty and drugs is going to change. While we worry about the environmental impact of the LNGs at the port, we have no idea the amount of pollution the maquiladoras subsidized by slave wages are spewing into the air and pouring into the water.

There is no future in the Third World Capital of the United States. Brownsville is a barrio town with its population of 200,000 expected to eclipse 300,000 in a decade. Overpopulation will denude the landscape of its pristine beauty. Cheap subdivisions and pavement will eventually turn our oasis into a desert. Let's not even mention the sorry impression our dilapidated downtown has on local folks, let alone visitors.

Am I surrendering? Is this my informal resignation that as a watchdog my days of howling at the powerful for the injustices they have perpetrated against the powerless are over? I don't think so; my Irish recalcitrance can't tolerate blackguards reducing me to a 98-pound weakling whom they can punch in the face and kick in the balls with impunity.

I am a writer and I have to write. If I don't, I cease to exist. It is my raison d'etre. But I am diminished by the passage of time. If 70 years have disappeared in the blink of an eye, how much time remains in the wink of the other eye? Perhaps I am no different than a punch-drunk boxer who has stayed in the ring too long. Perhaps I have met my match. I am intimidated by the finality of it all, COVID-19 only reinforcing the futility of existence as friends suddenly vanish into the abyss of eternity. Never, I tell myself to boost my confidence, underestimate the ferocity of a trapped beast.

But Brownsville is my home and I love its people. I have profound relationships, lifelong friends and warm acquaintances. I'm a working-class stiff and my sympathies have always been with my fellow comrades. I have nothing against the rich. I don't dislike them. I am simply not one of them and I know that they think differently. I don't trust them. As a Socialist Democrat, I can't comprehend how local Mexican-American Democrats can exploit their own people and look at themselves in the mirror as they enrich themselves on the backs of the poor.

Am I being overdramatic as I deal with my melancholy mood? I must speak from the heart. The authorities can't take my right to express my sentiments about this existence of ours. Or maybe they can. Lawyers need money and if you're willing to pay, they will prove that the innocent are guilty and the guilty are innocent.

But unlike other women, my muse hasn't abandoned me. Whether it's prose or poetry, the confessional style has been my favorite genre. I am not afraid to allow my readers to peek inside my closet filled with skeletons. But only a peek, mind you!

I have not succumbed to hopelessness and I'm not helpless, but the winds of change are blowing and it's not a norther. With Claudia in San Antonio visiting her two children, tonight my oldest son and I will share a bottle of wine, maybe two, over home-cooked steaks; my baby boy will make it a perfect menage a trois. It will be a moment that the three of us will remember. When it's all said and done, it's only the memories that accompany us to the grave.