Juan Ruiz
When I was 10 years old, my grandmother married for the fifth time.
She married Juan Ruiz.
He had four children. Rosie was the youngest and she blended well with my cousins and me, and for a time we were close. Her older brother Jesse, was “intellectually impaired”, maybe about five years old mentally. But his father never treated him as if he was not capable. So his language and behavior was very much like a bright five year-old. His older sister was Francisca, they called her Pancha, she and I never got to know each other very well, but she was good people. Jenny was the oldest daughter, and I felt like she was my older sister. I liked her very much. I don’t know what happened to her. I’d like to know.
My mom, of course, didn’t like any of them.
Juan, most of the family called him Don Juan, was a genuinely nice person. And a good man. He was a carpenter, he showed me how to drive a nail and he showed me so much about how to work wood. He was the only grandfather I ever had. My cousin Lupe still visits his grave when she is in town.
He was soft-spoken. He seemed like a man who lived in wisdom. He was reasonably methodical and definitely lived the ‘measure twice, cut once’ perspective of life. He had a way of rolling a tortilla when he ate it, which I still like doing to this day. When he enclosed the porch on my grandmother‘s house and made a room out of the attic, I helped him a bit.
I was 24 when he had a heart attack. This was before the days of 911, my grandmother called me, I called the fire station near their house, then rushed over to be with him. He survived a heart attack. He was told by his doctor he had to take it easy. He had to stop work and not drive. They had a chauffeur in me.
Coincidentally at that time there was a lot of work to do in my dad‘s apartments. My grandfather went with me and advised me. I was very proud that we built an outdoor stairway. And by we, I mean that I did the cutting and the hammering and the carrying, but he did the building. It was his design and expertise. We got to be close doing this project. During that time he told me that he had had an out of body experience. The walking to the light experience. He had been a religious man, but now church seemed less important to him, and he was not afraid of death at all.
He had another heart attack a number of months later. He could not be revived. He was ready to go.
Don Juan, my grandfather, was such a good and kind man. I miss him. I think of him often.
We live eternally, not by living a long time,
but by living the values that are eternal