Quarantine: Rehashing A Lost Relationship by Victoria De Leon
March 11, 2020
“Therefore, based on public health leaders’ counsel, we have made the difficult and painful decision to move classes to a distance-learning format and to make significant changes to our normal operations... Students are required to move out no later than Saturday, March 14, at 5:00 p.m. taking all belongings with them. However, we encourage students to move out as soon as feasible.”
This was the email that took me into a spiraling afternoon filled with tears, panic attacks, hundreds of emails, frantic phone calls, scrambled packing and rushed goodbyes
March 13, 2020
I landed in Denver, Colorado with two suitcases, my computer, and a heavy heart. Not to mention, I was going to move in with my dad. Yeah, that happened. The dad I hadn’t spent time with since my parents separated years ago. On the ride home all I could think about was how awkward it would be to go back to a house I hadn’t lived in for so many years. How silent will dinner be with a dad who probably didn’t remember what my favorite color was? Would he understand that I am not the little girl he remembers? How was I suppose to live with my dad when only months before I would complain about spending an afternoon with him?
As a little girl, my dad was always working out of state to provide for our family, making our relationship scarce. He was never a bad father just one that was absent most of the time. After the separation, my time with him became almost nonexistent. It became a random phone call here and there, sometimes dinner, but never more.
When I arrived at my old house I was surprised. It seemed like just yesterday my mom, brother, and I left. Yet years had gone by and my dad hadn’t changed a thing in the house. I found expired canned food in the pantries from the year we left, layers of dust on the furniture, and my room exactly the way I had left it. Even so, the house seemed unoccupied as if no one had lived in it for years. I was curious as to why my dad kept everything the same... Wasn’t it painful to see the memory of our family in our old furniture?
I didn’t ask him though and because the first week home I had no classes, I dedicated my time cleaning, and I mean deep cleaning. The cleaning served as a distraction from the news and allowed me to give my old house a new and refreshing look. Surprisingly, my dad wasn’t the same stern, grumpy, quiet man I would go to dinner with sometimes. After work, he would come home, and awkwardly ask me if I was hungry so I’d say, “Yes dad, claro que tengo hambre (of course, I'm hungry)". So we’d often go to the kitchen and start cooking my favorite food- enchiladas. I remember him being a great cook but for some reason, he would always ask me how much salt and oil he should add to the pans. Hmm... as if he didn't know how much. Anyways we spent hours making enchiladas and they’d still come out salty but we ate them anyway. Over dinner, we’d talk about everything and anything. It was weird to me because it was so… effortless—is the word I’m looking for.
That first dinner was followed by many more, whether he cooked some taquitos de frijoles con huevos while I finished a presentation at 8 pm or I made some tacos de papa for when he got out of work. Our lives seamlessly began to make sense together.
I felt it most when he would come into my room and distract me from my homework so that we could watch a movie about monsters (that I would actually pay attention to). However, those afternoons we spent sitting on the couch in silence watching a dumb monster movie made me feel like a little girl again.
At that point, I realized how much I’ve missed my dad all these years. When we first left I wasn’t affected because his absence was all I really knew but now that I am living with him and getting to know who my dad is- it’s been amazing. The nights spent on the kitchen table rambling about law school or the drives back from getting Olive Garden on Fridays in which he tells me about his childhood en el rancho have given me memories that I will never forget and will forever hold in my heart.
May 21, 2020
I have finally figured out why he had the tendency to ask me about the salt and oil (and even asked me what new furniture we should start adding to the house). It was because he had been alone all of these years, waiting for someone to come into his life and help him get it together. I’m happy to report back that our house is starting to look like a home again occupied by a father and his daughter.
Quarantine has helped me forgive my dad for not always being there for my mom, brother, and me. I forgive him because now that we have connected once more our relationship is more valuable to both of us. This pandemic has brought about so much suffering to our communities but I am forever thankful it has led me back to my dad and has forever changed our relationship.
I invite you to embrace the relationships you are neglecting during this quarantine and give that person who you've lost touch with a chance–you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
— Victoria D.
