In Memoriam

05/14/2024

My dad was a decent man. He wasn’t a perfect father, and I can’t say he was a perfect person either, but he was decent. Sometimes that’s the best that can be said of someone upon their passing without veering into the realm of lies, not that I would want to. He wouldn’t want me to either. I know he was a decent enough man to grant his daughter the grace to be upset at him not so much for the things he did, but for the things he did not do.

Miguel “Mike” Delgado was declared dead on June 18th, 2021.

My dad was an odd man. He didn’t have friends outside of work, but his reclusiveness never soured his disposition.

My dad was a headstrong man. A first generation American who knew the value of hard work but did not care to chase the "American Dream”. He once sat me down beneath the speckled Montana sky, on the rickety wooden swing on our porch, and said, “Poppy, have you tried counting how many stars are in the night sky? No? Well, it’s useless to try, but people try and try anyway.” I thought he meant that chasing an ideal so cosmic was a fruitless endeavor. Now that I’m older? Now that he’s dead? I think I understand what he meant.

Six months ago, my partner and I finally got around to cleaning out my childhood home. While a part of me insists it was because we had to sell that old place now that Dad was no longer inhabiting it, another, more insidious part whispered—what if? What if I found something everyone else had missed? But all I found were boxes of old tax documents, shopping receipts, contracts, and what I initially thought was a manuscript.

Dad was not a writer. He was a prodigy at technical writing, but his ability to tell a story was about as good as a marbled crayfish trying to tell a dad joke. It was easier to fall asleep to The Weather Channel’s hourly forecast than his senseless attempts at stringing together fictional events. This is why the manuscript confused me. That man didn’t have a single creative bone in his body. But, over the course of the past couple of weeks, as I poured over hundreds of yellowing pages, some waterlogged and others half burnt, some written in smudged pen and others neatly typed, I was only left with more questions than answers.

I think that what I found in some of those boxes were loose-leaf journals. And if I’m right…I can’t say whether I’m relieved or distraught by the understanding that my dad’s dwindling capability to differentiate fact from fiction may have played a role in his passing.

I am transcribing his entries both in memoriam, and as an indirect request on his behalf.

“This is for Cy but I’ve no idea how to get it out to him. It ain’t like I can post it to the newspaper when I’ve no freaking idea where he’s at.”

So, this is for you, Dad. May the internet do its thing and find “Cy”, whoever he may actually be. If not, well, may a piece of your madness remain on the unkillable internet—making you, technically, in some ways, immortal.