Author F. Isabel Campoy Talks To Her Father

Juan Diego Campoy Coronado

 

The strength of your mind sculpted the prodigy of our existence. 

The poetry of your heart made you, our example of life.

We come to say good-bye, with our hearts filled with a rainbow of feelings that your life sowed in our hearts. Dressed in black arrived sadness, first. Hidden in her dark clothes she carries the memories of your smile, the serenity of your voice, the sweetness of your kisses, the strength of each of your hugs that your arms offered for any reason. In her pockets she carries 98 years of memories, from your childhood in Aguilas, your adolescence as the first and best student of life, your adulthood as the responsible husband and father, that she is taking today to new horizons.

But our rainbow has also the WHITE of your innocence. You made a century of choices in life, so that the justice of love would triumph. You were our best defense against everything and everybody planting in our heart the strength for any possibility of life, and from them grew a crop of Happiness. Happy our home and childhood, work, studies, play. Happy the abundance of care, and happy even the scarcity in a long post civil war.

GREEN is this fertile field that with your effort you plowed seed by seed, alone, counting only with your determination. In it you designed the goals that would take you to be the first and at that time, the only, professor of English of dozens of generations of students. It was also there where it grew the hope to win a battle to history, to make this a better world. Your idealism is contagious and in it we will always follow you, blindly.

RED is the love that will remain alive, because you made its path eternal. Used, used daily, infinitely used love, made of close-afar, present-absent, from us to you-from you to the world “I love yous”. Love generously shared from dawn to forever.

BLUE is your kindness, and the peace with which you built the roof of our house. It is also de color of those eyes where you saw yourself daily. She is waiting for you, willing to close the cycle of your absence by her side. It is in the happiness of that road that you begin today, in which your memory will live, eternally.

Juan Diego Campoy Coronado

La fuerza de tu mente esculpió el prodigio de nuestra existencia. 

La poesía de tu corazón, te hizo nuestro ejemplo de vida.

Venimos a decirte adiós, o quizás solo, ¡hasta luego!, llenos de un arco iris de emociones que tu vida supo sembrar en nuestro corazón. Vestida de negro llegó primero la tristeza. Entre sus ropas oscuras lleva envueltos los recuerdos de tu risa, la serenidad de tu voz, la dulzura de tus besos, la fortaleza de cada abrazo que los tuyos daban por cualquier razón. En sus bolsillos guarda 98 años de memorias, desde tu infancia en Aguilas, tu adolescencia salesiana, tu madurez responsable de esposo y padre, que hoy se lleva a otros horizontes.

Pero nuestro arco iris de emociones tiene también el BLANCO de tu inocencia. Un siglo –casi- de elecciones en la vida para que triunfara la justicia del amor. Tu fuiste nuestra mejor defensa, frente a todo y todos. Tu sembraste en nuestro corazón, cualquier posibilidad de vida y sobre ella, creció la cosecha de la palabra FELIZ. Felices nuestro hogar y la infancia, el trabajo, el estudio, los juegos. Feliz la abundancia de cariño, y feliz incluso la escasez de una larga posguerra.

VERDE  es este campo fértil que con tu esfuerzo plantaste semilla a semilla en solitario y contando solo con tu tesón. En él trazaste las metas que te convertirían en el primer –y entonces único- profesor de inglés de decenas de generaciones de estudiantes. También allí nació la esperanza de poder ganarle un pulso a la historia para crear un mundo mejor. Tu idealismo es contagioso y en él te seguiremos siempre a ciegas.

ROJO es el amor que seguirá vivo, porque así labraste tú su camino. Usado, usadísimo amor, hecho “te quieros” cercanos - lejanos, presentes- ausentes, nuestros a ti, tuyo para los tuyos. Amor a manos llenas desde el amanecer hasta el infinito.

AZUL es tu bondad, y es la paz con la que edificaste nuestro techo. Es también el color de esos ojos en los que te miraste siempre. Ella te espera ya, deseosa de cerrar el ciclo de tu ausencia. Y es en la alegría de ese camino que hoy recorres, en la que vivirá eternamente tu recuerdo.

Tus hijos,

María del Pilar, Diego Alberto †,

Francisca Isabel, Vicente Lázaro

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 F. ISABEL CAMPOY is the author of numerous children’s books in the areas of poetry, theatre, stories, biographies, and art. As a researcher she has published extensively bringing to the curriculum an awareness of the richness of the Hispanic culture. She is an educator specialized in the area of literacy and home school interaction, topics on which she lecturers nationally. An internationally recognized scholar devoted to the study of language acquisition, a field in which she started publishing in l973 after obtaining her degree in English Philology from Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain; and post graduate work in Reading University in England, and UCLA in the United States. Among others, she is the recipient of Junior Guild Award, ALA Notable Book Award, San Francisco Library Award, and the 2005 Reading the World Award from the University of San Francisco.

Visit Isabel at www.isabelcampoy.com

Dad: This Year’s Model

Lately I’ve been struck by how my image of fatherhood has changed over the years. Like many people, my original concept of a “father” was based on memories of my personal experience with the species. My image of my father is that of an eight year old, frozen in 1971, as that was the year he died. To me, Dad was a tall, strong creature with a loud laugh, a good sense of humor and a hell of a temper. He wore collared shirts and long pants every day, and smoked a pipe filled with cherry tobacco. He worked during the week doing mysterious “office” things, and when he came home Mom kept us quiet as Dad was tired after working hard all day (try raising five children and running a household, Pops). She’d have a gin and tonic at the ready, and he would sit and read his paper (what I wouldn’t give, as a parent myself, for ten minutes alone to go to the bathroom). He played golf on Saturdays, and went fishing often. What the family ate, what car we bought, and where we went on vacation were all decided based on what Dad wanted. He could be warm and supportive and a hell of a lot of fun to be around, we often felt that he wasn’t around enough. Though under it all we knew that he loved his children, we were just an aspect of his life, one of many and not the foremost. We loved him back, but we behaved primarily because we were terrified of him. Many of my own father’s qualities were pretty common to the “Dad Model” of the 1950’s and 1960’s America. Despite having fond memories of my father, the last thing I wanted in a husband and father of my children was that kind of a Dad.

My realization that not all fathers were this way and that the role as a whole was changing came when I was in my early 20’s. I was visiting my brother George and his family, and had stayed over at their house one Friday night. When the baby woke up the next morning, George went in to get him so his wife could sleep late. I spent the morning watching George change his son’s diapers, give him a bath, make him breakfast, and watch Mr. Rogers with him. After a few hours of this I looked at George and said, “Why do you do all this and let her sleep in?” motioning toward the closed bedroom door and his slumbering spouse. He responded, “Because he’s my little boy, and this is our time together. It isn’t work, it’s fun.” His eyes misted while looking at his baby’s round face. I was floored, and for once, speechless. After a few moments of recovery time, I barked, “How the hell am I supposed to find a husband who will live up to this!”

Well, I did. I think that my husband is one of many of our generation who are tackling the task of fatherhood differently than our own fathers did. My husband changed as many diapers, bandages as many scrapes, reads as many books, and is as committed to our son as I am. We each take on the responsibilities of the family according to our own gifts and not according to gender lines. He does the cooking, the shopping and the home repairs; I do the cleaning, financial planning (because of my computer skills, certainly not my skill with a budget) and schedule organization.

And he has the stronger disposition. I’ll never forget when Carlos was two and had broken his arm at daycare. When we arrived at the medical office the doctor we all share handed our poor howling son to Doug, pointed at me and said, “You! Hallway!” and to my husband he pointed to the treatment room, “You! Inside!” I stood with my jaw on my chest in the hallway, tears flowing and heart racing as the door slammed shut in front of me. I then realized that perhaps our doctor knew us too well. I’m pleased to report that I am now more effective in these situations—having already been through my share of scares--but Doug is still better, and as a fully involved father he is miles better than my own was.

I know that while Doug’s approach to fathering is no longer unique, or even unusual, there are still examples of the old model “Dad” striding about. Once, right after Carlos was born, Doug was at the Stowe skating rink, showing off his prowess on a pair of hockey skates, when one of the local guys came up to congratulate him on the birth of his son. “Hey, if you start coaching hockey now, you can coach Carlos’ team when he gets old enough!” To which my husband responded, “Yeah, but what if he wants to figure skate?” The guy walked away from Doug in shock, a look of disgust on his face. The wonderful part is that Doug was serious. Whatever would make Carlos happy, he would support.

I have no doubt that Carlos is the highest priority and single brightest star in his life (this is one instance in my life that I’m happy to come second) and this comforts me. Many of my friends have similar situations with husbands or partners who are much more involved in the upbringing of their children, and I think it will make for an even more thoughtful and progressive next generation of adult males. On this day of honoring fathers and fatherhood, I would like to salute men like my brother George and particularly my husband, and express my gratitude to those men who are equal partners in this carnival we call parenthood.

Easter eggs on snow

On this, my 16th Easter in Vermont, I find myself driving around in the blinding snow as I rush around to buy last minute candy for my eleven year old son’s basket. No, he no longer believes in the Easter bunny, but I will continue to make up a basket for him, probably until he’s 45. There’s something about the ritual beyond the religious implications, or the commercial ones, something that harkens back to a simpler time for me, one of the few from the short time when we were a complete family of seven before my father’s death.

My childhood memories of Easter in our small 1960’s New Jersey town are so vivid they are in Technicolor. My mother would spend weeks sewing a holiday outfit for me. The coordinated outfit was completed with a straw hat, a pair of white gloves and shiny patent leather mary-janes. I would endure church with my parents and four older siblings, restless throughout because after mass we would participate in the community Easter egg hunt. I can still see the green field now, with the brightly colored eggs peeking out from behind the trees and shrubs. It was always a sunny day with blue skies and moderate temperatures. Then we would return home and the sugar bacchanalia would commence. I would spend the rest of the afternoon trying to protect my chocolate bunny from my three greedy brothers. Usually my father would be the one to bite its head off. Despite the gluttony of the men in my family, the warmth of those Easter Sundays is what I recall first.

Years later, with these pleasant memories of my childhood in mind I looked forward to sharing these rituals with my own child one day. A year after my arrival in Vermont I married a native Vermonter and settled down in this great state, two years later our son Carlos was born. On Carlos’ second Easter I dragged my husband away from his Sunday coffee and loaded our son into the car for his first Easter egg hunt. I focused on the rare sunshine, ignoring the bitter cold wind and straw-like frozen fields, and threw a cute beribboned basket into the back seat for him to collect candy and eggs in. As we drove up to the Trapp Family Lodge, my husband grumbled about the cold weather as I cheerfully reminded him that this was Carlos’ first Easter egg hunt and I wanted it to be special. We stepped out of the car and were walking toward the field when Carlos let out a blood-curdling scream. I looked down at him certain that his life was in danger when I noticed him pointing ahead with a look of abject terror on his face. I followed the line of his chubby finger to see a young woman in an Easter bunny costume. I knew right then and there that it was not going to go as I had pictured. I scooped him up and made a wide turn around the evil Easter bunny woman and we gathered with the rest of the parents. You could tell the experienced ones as they had a look on their faces similar to my husband’s. The look said, “Let this be over quickly so I can go back to my warm bed!”

As the hunt commenced I felt the first drops of precipitation. In that moment I realized just how cold it was. Soon the sleet started to come down in earnest. There was a quick grabbing of eggs and candy (with the parents helping out in a hurry to get it the hell over with). My husband returned with Carlos on his shoulders and they were both shoving candy in their mouths in an attempt to derive some pleasure from the experience. At that point our hosts began serving the free Ben & Jerry’s ice cream with polar fleece gloves on. As we stood there in 30-degree weather with sleet pounding on our heads and shoveling ice cream in our mouths with gloved hands, Carlos began to cry. In my disappointment and disillusionment I suggested we head for the car and on to home. That was the first time I saw my husband smile that day.

After so many years of holidays spent in the great white north, I’ve finally accepted the weather piece of it. The days of green, sunny egg hunts are probably behind me now: they just don’t seem to come that way here. (I should have known when during my first spring here I heard about the sunrise Easter Sunday service on Mount Mansfield where the congregation skis down the mountain at its completion). But I’ve never stopped enjoying putting together the Easter basket, and the egg hunts (only now they are often on a white background instead of green). For some reason it is on this day that I miss my father the most, gone 37 years now. Easter was important to him, I don’t know why. Maybe because unlike me, he was a religious person, but perhaps, like me, the day represents a return to a childlike joy. That’s why we looked the other way when he raided our candy. It was fun to see him shoveling chocolate in his mouth and searching for brightly colored eggs in the bushes. It was indeed, joyous. And though right now Carlos’ favorite part is that it is one of two days a year I allow him to eat candy in the morning, I hope there is more he will remember. A day of bright colors and sweet tastes. A day of rebirth and new promise. And the gift of another day our little family can celebrate together. And perhaps in loving memory of my father, I will bite the head off of Carlos’ chocolate Easter bunny.