The black man who approached from the rear of the gathering at my father's burial looked to be one hundred years old. He was frail, but not bent. He walked haltingly, supported by two black ... [+]
My father was a doctor. We never got the doctoring bug. He never spoke to us about medicine. Instead, he took us on road trips and taught us to play catch, even me. When we were little, he would read us bedtime stories. He used to recite poetry from Julia de Burgos or go off about Gabriel García Marquez's fictional town of Macondo. He brought us candy and told us jokes. My mother gushed every time she reminded us our father was a doctor. She gushed more when she told a stranger. She never had to work. Her focus was aggrandizing her husband. She held parties for him. Hosted galas. Paraded me