When a year of life is celebrated and another is born, someone has to go. When they blow off the candles and cheer, another is lit with tears for the love they miss. That’s the way life goes, how time passes by, and it’s incredible how we don’t realize how little we have until the next departure, one-more-year and beginning of life.

To think I was too used to seeing you at the porch, drinking coffee and talking with your boys. You held your wife’s hand dearly and soft with a tender love that screamed in silence.

You barely talked much, but that’s okay, because you rather listen to what others had to say.

I miss the way you joked with us, playing tricks on your granddaughter as she helped you arrange the medicine on the counter.

Driving through town on your red truck, you left your keys on the counter after that accident near your son’s restaurant.

Going to church every Sunday asking God for forgiveness and praying for your family’s health. You were the one who taught us to be selfless.

When the doctor announced you had two weeks left you simply smiled and thank God again. You told the doctor that you were grateful for the life you had with your wife, son and daughters.

To have met your grandchildren was a bigger blessing, but to have a family was an even greater miracle coming from the boy who grew with seven siblings who were taken away a bit too early.

Hands folded on your chest as you listen to sound of your daughter’s voice reciting the rosary prayers. Ten Ave Marias, un Padre Nuestro y Gloria fifty times, but as the beads were passed your mother called after you and your father said how proud he was, and your siblings cheered for you at golden gates entrance to garden where white roses grew.

The cries of your daughters echoed as your smile widen at the sight of the little girl you lost twenty years ago. As they say their goodbyes, your little nieta says she has been waiting for you. Taking her hand you walk through the garden where the children play, your family behind and the One awaiting by the flamboyan to welcome you home.

But time still continued for us, and the pain turned to happy memories with our tears turning laughter as we look back. When we blew the candles on your birthday, when we turned on the Christmas lights after Thanksgiving, and when we watched the fireworks at the begin of the year, we thought of you in every single moment hoping that you were enjoying the view from above.