I’m five years old and watching T.V. in my living room.

It’s getting pretty late, and despite my mom constantly having had told me to go to bed, I’m up and probably on my third round of watching the movie Spirit, the one about the horse. I’m groggy, and slowly starting to fall asleep on the couch, but I have to wait. I hear the familiar weight of mi papa coming down the stairs. It’s late and I can hear him sit down in one of our dining room chairs, the clunk of his boots hitting the wood floors as he puts them on softly echoes down the basement to where I lay. I hear those same boots make their way down. He goes,

“ya vete a dormir mija, es muy tarde.”

“Go to sleep, its late.”

I don’t budge. I lay there motionless, eyes closed softly in a way I have perfected, if you close them shut too tight they can tell you aren’t actually asleep. He walks over to the television and turns it off. I am still laying quietly on the couch, continuing my performance. I hear him come over and he gently picks me up. The familiar feeling of weightlessness comes over me as he carries me up our steps and opens the door to my room. He places me on my bed and under the covers. He turns on the bedside lamp I insist on keeping on, and softly closes the door behind him as he walks out. I hear his heavy work boots make their way out the door as he picks up his keys, and grabs his lunch bag from the fridge. Silence fills the house again after he leaves for work.

This is our nightly routine.

My dad is one of the most influential people in my life. Through him I have learned what determination and complete selflessness are. My mom loves to remind me of how enamored he was with me even before I was born. My dad came to this country in the hopes of building a foundation for the family he was soon to grow. Like many he came here illegally and was later granted citizenship.

He never had had the chance to be a child.

My grandpa died when he was in the United States in the early seventies when my dad was only sixteen. That was the point in which he had to grow up immediately, and become the provider for his mom and four sisters. His family was poor, and he had to work very hard to help them survive, ultimately this meant coming to the United States following in his dad’s footsteps. He would send money back to my grandma and his sisters.

When he moved my mom to this country, he began to take ESL classes and he would write about su Karensita, his little Karen. They had me only a year into their marriage. She still has the letters he would write about me tucked away. My mom was a stay at home mom for the first few years of my life, and my dad worked days and nights in order to provide for our growing family. We lived in an apartment building with my aunts and cousins before moving into the house we live in now, and the first few years of my life were very happy. I grew up around my family and those that I loved. Our home was not luxurious, but what it lacked in monetary tokens it more than made up for in its warm and loving ambiance.

He was my number one fan growing up. He put a big value on my brother and I getting the education he thought would be best for us. We moved in to the house I live in now because the schools were much better than our old neighborhood.

He and I would watch PBS together, and I would ask him a million questions about everything. Watching TV with him when he wasn’t working was one of my favorite ways to spend time. My dad spoke to me like I was an adult, and it really gave me the confidence to speak and ask questions in an educational environment. I did well in school with the support of my parents, and thrived in grade school. My dad would show off my report cards to my aunts and uncles,“esta es mi hija!” he would boast proudly when we went over for desayuno at my grandma’s house on Sundays after church, showing my family my straight A’s. He would hang these same report cards from the rear view mirror in his truck, right next to the rosary, like a prized jewel he intended to show off as often as he could.

My determination to get into college was shaped by my dad’s strong ideals, and his will for me to live out the American dream he had fought so hard for himself.

My dad just turned fifty, and as time passes and I see him get older, I realize he has spent most of his life working so incredibly hard in a sacrifice that isn’t even made for himself. I can’t ever imagine having that amount of selflessness. This man who comes home late at night, deprived from sleep, the one that came to this country with nothing, who managed to create a foundation for a family at such a young age, has shaped who I am as a person in a way I could not thank him enough for.

He no longer works the night shift he did when I was a small child, and I no longer stay up watching my favorite movie waiting for him to carry me to bed before he leaves to work. He returns from work at night now still smelling like industrial machinery and oil, his hands creased and calloused, the crow’s feet around his eyes seem to only get deeper.

I still hear the thud of his boots as he takes them off echoing up to my room, a reminder that I have to keep putting in as much effort as he does. I have to keep echándole ganas.