DADDY'S LITTLE GIRL

One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
~Emily Dickinson, "Time and Eternity"

A memory is fragments of past experiences, bits of the experience stored in several different parts of the brain, linked to one another by means of encoded neural connections, I learned in college.

Fragments of the past, I said, because rather than stored “video clips”, memories are like jigsaw puzzles. We do not remember a day, but a moment. Exactly what you encode to be stored is not completely understood, but I imagine it is only things of (subjective) significance. In an attempt to overcome this lack of continuity, as well as to overcome time and space, we build paper memories… and so was the case when daddy and I met.

Dad, so handsome the nurses called him "The doll"


Dad, Surgical Clinic Contest, Luis Vernaza General Hospital

Dad, giving a surgical solution to a congenital hip dysplasia of a babyboy

He was 30; a handsome, well reputed, charismatic director of the hospital in a mining town. I had just born after a long yearning for fatherhood. He was instantly spellbound by adoration.

Dad and I (4 days old)

The snapshots made in those years, late 1950’s, show him holding me, looking at me, helping me, a true passion I must say.

Dad and I (8 days old, the day of my baptism)


Dad and I (3 months old)


Dad and I (six months old)


Dad and I (8 months old)

As it often happens in life, the infatuation must have been mutual. There are no images of me saying my first word, but the happening was recorded on a gold bracelet that dad ordered to commemorate such milestone, particularly because the very first word I uttered was his nickname: PEPE. He was very proud of having bestowed his last name on me; the other charm of the bracelet had my initials engraved. Also, as a birthday present on year two, he ordered 7 tiny gold rings, linked by two hearts, the first one had the initials of my given names engraved on it, the second one sported the initials of his/my last name as an epigraph.

The bracelet and tiny rings, next to my wedding ring, so that the size can be compared

Although paper photos have fixed the shadows of my early infancy, and gold baby jewelry has been a remembrance of father/daughter love for 50 years, there are some other recollections that remain engraved in my heart, written under the forge of a love I find no words to express.

I remember you, dad, making the daily intake of vitamins an act of pure joy. While my cousins would have a spoonful of the disgusting cod liver oil, you had tiny chocolate-flavoured vitamin bricks brought from abroad, that you kept in a golden tin box as a treasure, of which you gave us one piece a day.

You often brought fun with you, like the most scrumptious cheese-flavoured cheetos, something unknown in our little town of Loja. Or eccentricities such us the silent movies of The Circus, Cinderella, Mickey Mouse, Popeye and Donald Duck that we’d watch on the panoramic screen of the living room wall. They came with the Kodak home theatre projector you had brought from USA. Since then, I ought to have popcorn when watching a movie.

I have vivid memories of your slightly crazy way to make ordinary things seem a marvelous adventure, totally ruled by chance. Mango fruits were safer then, in the sense that farmers did not use chemicals to increase the production; this brought along the fact that at times, mango fruits could have harbored a couple of “residents”. So after you had brought home a bag of mangos, you’d peel the one I had chosen, and then say “let’s turn off the light so that we enjoy the flavour”. I don’t know how many worms I ate, but I have always loved mangos, ever since my early childhood. You also brought those splendid seedless oranges, the “Santa Rosa” oranges that sported a “belly button” from where you’d start peeling them. You never turned off the lights when we had those, I imagine the chances of unwanted hosts in them were slim.

No journey would start without a round of love. As soon as I had gotten up, I’d rush to your bedroom, where you’d be smoking (yes, a nasty habit, I know, but in those days it was not considered so bad). I’d have my milk bottle while you bemused me by blowing smoke rings that kept my sight caught as they ascended higher and higher until they vanished into thin air. Then, you’d read me the comics on the newspaper. “Pochita Morfoni” and “Fulmine” were your favorites and became mine as well, of course. Then, when you were ready to go to work, you and I would kiss on each and every single space left by the balusters of the staircase.

My sister and I in dad's bed, early in the morning


Dad with my sister and I, in a rocking chair, before bedtime

You were so encouraging: none of my whims was too ridiculous for you not to oblige, no choice of mine was too wild for you to undertake. I remember you driving, with me often standing to your side, my arms wrapped around your neck, and leaning in to whisper –read "to command"- into your ear which turn to make when we reached an intersection. Good thing all streets were two way roads and there were not too many cars in Loja in those days.

I never got the chance to tell you about these memories, as you departed one day, rather unexpectedly, due to that absurd accident that left me eternally waiting for your return home to hear you say “I am back, Miss Moon; see? I told you it wouldn’t take long”. These sweet memories have haunted me for good 48 years. But you know what? father’s day is just around the corner, so I wanted to tell you, wherever you are besides than in my heart, that the strong and self sufficient woman that I became feels so proud and fortunate to have been, for 3 years and 10 months, daddy’s little girl.

To you, dad, goes my everlasting adoration.

Dad and I, August 1958