I was
born during the fall, my favourite season, on a Saturday, my favourite day of
the week, in October, my favourite month, in the 1950’s, a decade that I find
historically interesting. It may be true after all, that the sky under which you
are born has an influence on your personality. I was born at ten o’clock in the morning of the tenth day of the tenth month,
not under a full moon, as it had been the case, if I had waited ten more hours,
but under a warm autumn sun. My father suspected that was a sign, a bad omen,
because he had read somewhere that someone, notoriously sadistic and sinister,
had died at ten o’clock in the morning of the tenth day of the tenth month, and
that although the number ten was a symbol of perfection, three tens represented
the opposite.
It was the twenty-fifth year of the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, during which more than 50,000 people were imprisoned, tortured, and killed; and over 20,000 unarmed Haitian men, women, and children, were slaughtered in the infamous massacre of the Haitians of 1937, executed under the direct orders of Trujillo, but, at least according to some, masterminded my Trujillo’s kingpin Joaquin Balaguer, who later would become president of the republic. And although more horror was yet to come, like the assassination of the Mirabal sisters in November, 1960, and my father would almost lose his life at the hands of the secret police, a birth is always an auspicious and hopeful event. And besides, he was very happy because contrary to my older brother who looked just like my mother, I looked exactly like my father.
Regardless of whether the three tens had anything to do with the way my existence has unfolded my life hasn’t turned out to be the way I thought it would. But does anyone’s life ever do? And considering what life and the human condition are, I have no right to complain. Therefore, when I reflect on my life, it is the happy memories I cling to. They help me go through the rough patches.
It was the twenty-fifth year of the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, during which more than 50,000 people were imprisoned, tortured, and killed; and over 20,000 unarmed Haitian men, women, and children, were slaughtered in the infamous massacre of the Haitians of 1937, executed under the direct orders of Trujillo, but, at least according to some, masterminded my Trujillo’s kingpin Joaquin Balaguer, who later would become president of the republic. And although more horror was yet to come, like the assassination of the Mirabal sisters in November, 1960, and my father would almost lose his life at the hands of the secret police, a birth is always an auspicious and hopeful event. And besides, he was very happy because contrary to my older brother who looked just like my mother, I looked exactly like my father.
Regardless of whether the three tens had anything to do with the way my existence has unfolded my life hasn’t turned out to be the way I thought it would. But does anyone’s life ever do? And considering what life and the human condition are, I have no right to complain. Therefore, when I reflect on my life, it is the happy memories I cling to. They help me go through the rough patches.
Even when the circumstances surrounding them may
be sad, the memories of my father are happy ones, simply because he was there.
He was a peasant who at fourteen years of age left the family farm and headed
for the city in search of a better life. He barely finished elementary school,
he never read a book about parenting, but nevertheless he managed to be an
excellent father, better than I have been, in spite of all my college education.
I loved my mother (she is dead now) but, you
see, mothers could at times be taken for granted. After all, they carry their
babies inside their wombs for nine months, and they breast-feed them when they
are born. Their babies are literally part of them. So it is only natural that
they take care of their children, and are willing to kill or die for them.
Fathers on the other hand are a different story; they are more unpredictable. They
don’t necessarily assume responsibility for their begotten. And yet, one
recurrent and prominent figure throughout my life has been (he is still alive)
my father.
I vaguely
remember one day, as my mother and I were leaving the doctor’s office, out in
the street, I saw my father, who had returned after what seemed to me a long
absence. I ran towards him and I felt immensely happy. I don’t remember the
details of that incident, as I was only four years old, but my mother told me
that my father had been unemployed, left our home town and went to the Capital City
© William Almonte Jiménez, 2015
