The Night I Lost My Hero

I was fifteen when my father died. He had esophageal cancer. He drank milk constantly, chewed through TUMS like they were breath mints. For years, he just called it heartburn. He worked in a factory, ate spicy food, lived hard, and kept going. The diagnosis came late, and the end came fast.

They brought in a hospital bed, but it didn’t fit right in the room, so it was turned sideways—when you walked in, you saw his feet first. He looked like someone had taken skin and stretched it over a skeleton. He didn’t have any hair left, and he was barely conscious most of the time. But he asked our Huela—his mom—to read the Bible and say the rosary for him, over and over. I stood there one night, just for a moment. Held his hand. And then I went to my room, took off my glasses, knelt by the bed, and cried quietly into the dark.

That was the last time I saw him.

My stepmother sent me and my half-siblings to stay the night with family friends. I don’t remember who they were or what the house looked like. I just know it’s where my life ended.

I turned on the TV. SeaQuest DSV, Earth 2. Sci-fi, hope, curiosity, integrity—the way the world should work. I never missed those shows. That night, I wasn’t trying to do anything special, I just zoned out for a minute.

And that’s when he left. My stepmom called later to say he’d passed right around that time.

The next day, I still went to school. I’d never missed a day on purpose. Choir class was first. We were practicing “Amazing Grace” for show choir auditions. It was his favorite. I made it one line in, then crumpled. I had to run to the bathroom and sob. I don’t remember anything after that.

He faded. That’s the word. He just... faded.

And even though I know how to live without him now, it’s never really the same.

Maybe it was the tamales or the chorizo with eggs, or the way his hands smelled like metal and soap. He was leathery and hardworking, never afraid to get dirty. He judged people by their actions, not their appearance. He taught me what love looked like when it came from care and constancy. A teddy bear of a man, who still somehow reminded me—near the end—of the sad, stretched-out creatures in The Dark Crystal. Not terrifying. Just terribly, terribly sad.

He couldn’t drink water anymore. We gave him those little pink sponges on a stick—his last days filled with the quiet ritual of care, one sponge at a time.

I still watch his football teams, even though I’ve never liked the sport. I still know how to bowl and play Texas Hold ’Em. I still don’t like Westerns.

And I swear I can still smell that cologne sometimes. The kind his family brought from Mexico, musky and strong. He shared its name, so I thought that’s just what he was. And though I’ve never found it since, I still catch it now and then—like the ghost of myself, just a little.

Some editing support provided by AI, but the story and memories are entirely my own.

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