Andrew De La O: 30 Years.....

Andrew Salazar De La O

My Parents: Boyle Heights 1947

In the blink of an eye, that;s how fast the last 30 years have flown by. Today, May 7, 2011, marks the 30th anniversary of our father's death. He's been on all our minds lately. My mother and I were talking the other day and she remarked that the years that she spent with my father were the best years of her life. That makes me glad that she remembers him that way. Same with my brother Dennis, he remembers the 1970's as the time when we were all together, still a complete family. My mother was 52 when our father passed, my sister Evelyn was 31. My brother was only 16. My father passed the day before my 27th birthday.

Tomorrow I'll be 57, the same age my father was when he died. That's significant to me. A part of me thought I would never make it. Soon I'll be older than my father was. So in one sense, yes, it has been in a blink of an eye, in another sense, it was a lifetime ago. We'll be together again someday.

Today, before heading up to the high desert to celebrate Mother's Day with my wife and mother, we'll stop at my father's grave site to pay our respect and to remember.