Daisy Rosario - Child of Trouble 

 

Hello. Yeah. Thank you. Yes, hi. So, my father had just died. After three days of sitting in my teeny, tiny studio apartment, staring at walls and eating in excess, it was finally Friday, the funeral. I was eager to get the funeral over with. I wanted the event of my father's dying to be finished, so I could just mourn and grieve. But it felt like there was still so much business to be had. It was about two hours before the funeral when I received a text message from my mother. It said, “I just called your grandmother to give her my condolences. Your brother was there. You're going to get to meet him.” 

 

My brother and I had never met, never spoken, never seen each other, nothing. We were raised on opposite coasts by our moms, him in California and me in Brooklyn, pretty much, because well, my dad was not a good man. You should know that I'm fine with this fact. My father was a thug, a drug dealer. Sometimes to keep it simple, I like to say, he was what rappers claim to be all the time. [audience laughter] But more than anything, he was a fighter. He was a fighter in the streets. He was a prison boxing champion. I watched him fight for over two years as AIDS ravaged his once very strong body. In the end, we had to make the decision to take him off of life support. And that was the week that I had had when I got this text message from my mother. 

 

So, I had no energy or emotional stamina by which to be nervous or even worried about meeting my brother. But I do remember thinking two things. I remember thinking, one, I was hoping he would be a distraction, because my recent reconnection with the family had made me something of a novelty and I was a little tired of being stared at. And two, I was hoping that he was weird like me, because I don't quite fit in with my dad's side of the family. 

 

My boyfriend and I took the A train deep into Brooklyn to the funeral home. When we got there, we were greeted outside by one of my cousins who, when she saw me, said, “Oh, Daisy, your brother's in there. Go meet him.” She said it like that. She said it like a command, as if it would not have occurred to me otherwise to do so. [audience laughter] In my head, I reverted to being like a 12-year-old girl, and all I could think was, “Duh.” 

 

So, I walk in the building. And all of a sudden, I realized that I'm hiding behind my boyfriend and I'm peeking over his shoulder as we get up the stairs. I wasn't really nervous about it until that moment when I realized this is about to happen right now. I got up the stairs and I tried to peek into the room, because I wanted to get a glimpse of my brother before he saw me. When I peeked in, I spotted him right away. I did. It was hard not to. He was the only person who was sitting with the family whom I hadn't met before, who was in the right age range. I knew he was supposed to be about a year and a half older than me, but more than anything, he looked like me. I mean, he really looked like me. 

 

My entire life, I've always been told how much I look like my mom. And it's true, if you saw her, I got my skin color from her and my hair. But there's always been a little something about my face that I didn't quite know where it came from. It looked a little different. And if you asked me to tell you what it was, I couldn't explain it possibly. And the minute I saw my brother, he looked exactly like that inexplicable thing. 

 

Excited whispers started in the room as everyone realized I was standing at the door. As I started to make my way across, everyone turned to me with this excited expectation. I wasn't expecting to see that at a funeral. It was more like the look I would think you would give to the entrance of a particularly grand cake at a wedding. As I made my way across the room, I stopped in front of my brother, and he stood up, and cameras came out and flashes went off as we started to hug. Because my family are emotional paparazzi, [audience laughter] I had no idea what to say to him. I just said the first thing that came into my head. And for you, sports fans out there, I say, please forgive me, because this is over a year ago. It made more sense at the time, but the very first thing I said to my brother was, I whispered in his ear, “You are the Brett Favre to my Eli Manning.” [audience laughter] 

 

I was so worried that after winning the Super Bowl, like all the newspapers would be writing about me and I'm a shy player, but now that the jets have traded for you last minute with all this controversy, nobody's writing about me at all. That's actually what I said to him. [audience laughter] He didn't say anything. He just started to sit down, and I wondered if I had said something wrong. The minute we broke our embrace, the family started to swarm me. People were running up to me, trying to say hello and show me pictures. 

 

My Aunt Margie barged right through the middle of a mall, and in a voice, you again wouldn't think anyone would use for anything at a funeral, said, “Oh, so you finally met your brother, huh? Well, maybe you can get him to talk, because he doesn't say anything.” [audience laughter] She was standing about two feet away from him. I looked at all of this, and I took it in and it occurred to me that if I was in my brother's position, it would look like I had been raised by this part of the family. I didn't want him to think that I was the chosen child while he was out in California with no one looking for him, because the truth was that no one had looked for either one of us. 

 

And so, when everyone was slightly out of earshot, I leaned in to my brother again and I said, “Hey, I just want you to know, I didn't grow up with these people either. I was raised by my mom, just like you were raised by yours. I just met most of them at the hospital this week. So, even then, it's not like I was there because he called me. I went looking for him a few years ago.” My brother didn't say anything, but he shifted in his chair, and it felt like a larger shift had taken place as well. I don't know if it was that the air between us had warmed or that we were making more eye contact. But in a little while, I looked up to realize that we were talking. 

 

He and I had moved into the corner, away from everyone standing by the door where everyone could see us, because it was very clear that everyone wanted to be looking at us. We’re standing around commenting on the situation at hand. We weren't trying to catch up on everything that we had missed. No heavy conversation, just united in our awkwardness against this room full of an extended family and friends of a family that we didn't know. 

 

At one point, he turned to me and he said, “What are you doing this weekend? Because I'm here until Monday, and I hope you know I want to see you every day until then.” I was surprised. I liked the idea of it. I could see why now that we were beginning to chat, but I still didn't know what it meant. And then, a little while later, he added, “Oh, by the way, I have a son. His name is Damien and he's 12. You have a nephew.” I really like the sound of that, because I'd grown up an only child and I never thought I would have a niece or a nephew. But I still didn't even know what that meant. I mean, was I ever even going to meet this kid? 

 

As the day wound down, it was time for the speeches. And the official eulogy was given by one of our many cousins. This one happened to be a preacher. He did a good job. He recited what he said was my father's favorite psalm, and he told a couple of little anecdotes about my father's last few years, his realizations that the problems that he had gotten into in his youth had led him to where he was at the time. For example, he had always been known by this nickname on the streets. Ever since he was really young, my father had always been known by this nickname. So much so that more people in the room at the funeral home were calling him by that name than by his real name. And in his last few years, he didn't want the kids in the family to call him by that name. 

 

Now, that name was Trouble. Because that's what he is and that's what he was. When you're from where he's from, you just need to let people know what they're dealing with right away. Like, there's no effort to be clever. It's just like, this is the deal. So, my father always was Trouble. But in his last couple years, he insisted that the little kids in the family called him Bubbles, because he didn't want them to associate him with such a negative name, [audience laughter] you know, which for him is the sweetest thing, you know? 

 

And so, they talked about that, and I thought it was nice and then the preacher wrapped it up and sat back down. I started to look around the room, and I realized that people were looking at me. While I didn't have anything planned to say, I had that moment where I thought, well, you only go to your father's funeral once. And if you don't say anything, you might regret it. And so, I got up and I made my way across the room. I turned and I faced out into the audience, and they were just staring at me. I mean, much differently than this they had spent their whole lives hearing about me but not meeting me. So, they were not just looking at me, they were absorbing me with their eyes. They were trying to catch up on years’ worth of information in just that look. 

 

Since I had nothing planned and I didn't know where to begin, I just started there and I said, “I wish you could all see what it's like looking out onto all of you looking back at me, but it's a lot. You all very kindly keep coming up to me and telling me how sorry you are. But I have to tell you, I'm so sorry for your loss, because you all know him so much better than I ever did or I ever will. You have stories about him. I barely have any. I only have a couple from when I was really young. Like, I have a story about the time that he promised to take me to the Bronx Zoo, and he took me to the Bronx, [audience laughter] and then we sat in somebody's apartment most of the day. And then, he got me to the zoo about 10 minutes before it closed, ran me through the exit so we didn't have to pay and went as fast as we could back out the entrance. 

 

Or, the time that he said he was going to take me to the movies and he took me to see Exorcist 3, which was extra weird because I hadn't seen Exorcist 1 or 2 and I was eight years old.” Like you, guys, they laughed. I was glad, because I didn't want them to think that I was making fun of him so much as those were the only stories I had. I had long ago stopped associating any animosity with them and I just started to see the humor in them myself. 

 

I finished up what I had to say. I made my way back to my seat. I was completely shocked. My brother got up and he walked across the room to the podium. If I didn't have anything to say, what was he going to say? He'd only met our father one time. He was spending the summer in New York with his mother's extended family. I think one of our aunts took him to visit our father in prison. That was their only meeting when he was seven years old. So, what was he going to say? 

 

He got up there and he looked out on everyone. He paused for a moment, seemingly taken aback by the crowd, the same way I was and then he began. “I don't really care that he's dead. [audience laughter] It's not that I don't care. I don't want to be rude or anything. It's just that I didn't know him at all. I never even spoke to him. So, I don't want to be rude. It's just I wasn't even going to come here today. When they called and told me about it, I was thinking, why bother? But then, on the phone, they said, ‘Your sister wants to meet you.’” 

 

When he said that, he started to well up and he started to cry. He didn't just start to cry, he started to bawl. You could tell just by looking at him that he was not someone who cried often. If you couldn't tell that by his demeanor, you could tell that by his reaction to crying, because it didn't make any sense. He didn't try to wipe away his tears. He tried to take the heels of his palm and jam everything back into his eyes [audience laughter] as if everything was just going to go right back where it came from. 

 

And then he continued, and he said, “And now I've met her.” His voice broke up some, and he pointed towards me, “And she's beautiful.” I was so stunned. I didn't know what to think or to feel. I knew he wanted to have dinner this weekend, but I didn't know that I was the reason he had even gotten on the plane. And so, I just sat there, overwhelmed by the sense of flattery, which I tell you, when you get up in the morning to go to your dad's funeral and you put on that terrible little black dress that you bought for just that occasion, you do not think you're going to feel that at any point during that day. But that is all I could feel. Just shock and flattering. 

 

My whole family, because at a funeral, we all sit in the front row together. I'm sitting in the front row with them. As this is happening, they all are looking at him and they are crying. And then they all turn to me and they say, “Daisy, go be with your brother. Go be with your brother. Go stand next to your brother. Go be with your brother.” [audience laughter] Because for people that I didn't grow up knowing, they have no problem telling me exactly what they want me to be doing at any given moment. And so, I got up and I awkwardly walked over there, and I got there and realized that I had nothing. So, I just awkwardly tapped him on the shoulder and stood back. I guess, “I'll be here if you need me” pose. He wrapped it all up by saying, “Oh, yeah. And I have a son. So, the Rosario name is going to go on” or whatever. [audience laughter] This is how I became both an aunt and a younger sister at my father's funeral. 

 

We did end up hanging out that weekend. We went to see four Christmases. It was fine. We ended up talking and texting and emailing each other every day in the months that followed. When my birthday came up, just about two months after, I was so happy and completely surprised to receive a huge shipping envelope full of birthday cards, 28 of them, in fact, one for every single year that we had not had together. 

 

We were constantly surprised to this day to realize how much we actually have in common for two people that didn't actually grow up anywhere near each other. Genetics are a pretty amazing thing. We laugh a lot. And I've gotten to go to his wedding. He's since gotten married, and he's come to visit here, and I've gone out there and taken my nephew to play video games and things like that. It's really amazing. 

 

But it was crazy, because one of the first things that we agreed upon that first weekend, just sitting in a diner and talking, one of the things that we just both could not deny, was that as much as you want it to happen a different way, I didn't want my dad to have to die to meet my brother. I didn't want it to happen in this pattern. As much as you don't want any of that, with the lives that we had led, with the things that I had been going through the years before and the things that my brother had going on in his life, we realized that it couldn't have happened any other way. It'd be nice if it could, but it is what it is and we couldn't be happier to find each other. Thank you.