Something to Write Home About September 5, 2024 – Posted in: Books, Edwin Fontanez, Events, News, One Last Song

In March of 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and it marked worldwide seismic changes that resonated even more noticeably here in our American backyard. This momentous time in history marked a quantum leap that transformed our fundamental way of living, working, and creating.

     It was during the lockdown, in search of ways of occupying myself and making the most of our collective social distancing, that I set out to peruse through my old files. Poring over the pages of notes I used to take during decades of visits to my parents and family in Puerto Rico and thumbing through the archive of black and white negatives I had saved from my years in art school, a pattern began to form in my mind—one I had not bothered to unlock while my parents were alive.

     As I re-read the numerous notes I had jotted down, I rediscovered my feelings at returning to my parents’ home, the place I had lived until I left for art school in San Juan. There were observations of the changes in the neighborhood, portraits of old familiar neighborhood characters, and even descriptions of the lush geographical heart of the island on a rainy day, the mesmerizing blazing sunsets, and the smell of the soil. But the thing that stood out to me most was realizing it was a documentation of my aging father as he slowly descended into the darkness of dementia.

     This realization was the catalyst that prompted me to write about my father and revisit our relationship, but this time from a mature perspective and, more importantly, with empathy. I must confess that even then I wasn’t sure where this re-examination would take me but my desire to give my father one last chance to be seen with dignity was strong. It also meant I had to acknowledge our mutual flaws and uncover the love that ultimately hid beneath our lives, even when we were afraid to show it.

     After the long process of revisiting such personal and intimate frame of my father’s times, I was rejoiced to reconstruct his portrait which came alive in my new work One Last Song for My Father: A Son’s Memoir. This book also represents my final elegy to the imperfect man I will always love.

—Edwin Fontánez, author