Echoes of Light

It was early 1976, the Bicentennial on the horizon, and my world was shifting in ways I didn’t yet understand. We had moved from five acres of childhood freedom into a cramped two‑bedroom in the city. My dad was living forty miles away in a camper at the hydroponic plant where he worked, growing cucumbers and tomatoes. Looking back, I know now my parents were separated. Back then, it just felt like weekend adventures.

Those weekends were magic to me. At night we’d walk to the workers’ shacks—dirt floors, lantern light, the smell of beans and chiles. Their food was too spicy for me, so my dad always bought a can of Spaghettios and heated it in the camper. I ate it from a blue-handled enamel cup. The men would play soccer when they had time off, and I’d run right into the middle of the game, kicking more shins than the ball. They laughed anyway. I still remember the youngest—Raul.

One weekend, my dad took me to the swap meet and introduced me to a pretty woman and her kids. They were older, sharper, and knew things I didn’t. That night we all slept in the camper while my dad stayed inside with her. The kids teased me, said things I didn’t understand, and dragged me into the house to “see.” I walked in on my dad kissing her in the kitchen. Everyone was angry. I felt small and confused.

When I got home, my mom questioned me like she was interrogating me for a crime. She squeezed everything out of me.

A few weeks later, she took me to see him again. We bought Bicentennial cupcakes—still the best cupcakes I can remember. That night he gave me a stuffed raccoon in overalls. He knew I loved raccoons. Then he pulled me close, and for the first time in my life, I saw my dad cry. He told me he was going away. That we wouldn’t see each other anymore. He told me to be brave. I tried to be.

A few days later, riding home on the school bus, I saw his truck parked outside our house. I ran all the way home, heart pounding, certain he had come back for me. But my mom said he wasn’t there. Said he had never been there. Told me to stop talking about it. Later, she said if I hadn’t “told on him,” he wouldn’t have left. She brought it up even when I was grown. But I know what I saw was real

Yet through all the years of separation, I knew my dad loved me. He was the one who showed up, spent time with me, taught me so much. And even though he passed away fifteen years ago, his love still touches me at times. Years later, after I was married, our paths crossed again. We didn’t get the long stretch of time we lost, but we did get a few visits — enough for me to see the man I remembered, and enough for him to see the woman I’d become. Those moments were a quiet gift before he passed, a small circle closing after so many years apart. Even now, his love still finds its way back to me.