Rest in peace Mariano Ortega

Mariano Ortega at the City Shoe Repair in Santa Fe, September 2015. Photo by Jay Dryden.

My grandpa died last week. He was 92 years old so this shouldn’t be surprising — but he’s been old my entire life and I only just now realized I thought that would always be the case.

Every trip to Santa Fe has included a stop by the City Shoe Repair to see my grandpa. Now, not even the shop is there. My cousin moved it to a better location. How can you go home without stopping by to see my grandpa at the shop? I even included him in a Santa Fe travel piece I wrote for the Houston Chronicle.

“Every day I’m alive is a good day,” he would say. His commitment to not complaining was comical. The last time I saw him was about two years ago. He was in the hospital for a surgery.

“How you feeling, grandpa?” I asked.

“Never been better!” He said from his hospital bed. “I’m still here and my family still loves me. What more could I ask for?”

I like to imagine what I might have inherited from him. His good humor? Definitely not. “If every day you’re here is a good day, then what does that make today?” I wonder. He wouldn’t like that. He’d shake his head at me and tell me to stop bringing people down.

“You hear any good jokes lately?” he’d ask.

We have the same long face I think. And the same nose. My coloring is different though. No one ever suspected we were related.

In the shop he’d greet me with “¡Orale, vata!” He thought it was hilarious the “güerita” spoke Spanish. He liked to use his pachuco slang with me because he knew they didn’t teach it in school. He never corrected me. He’d just switch back to English when I stopped making sense. I wore his accent like a sweater.

This first poem I had published was about him and that shop:

When nothing much changes

Dad gets here, and we go by the shop, where

my grandpa still sits behind his antique

sewing machine in a denim smock

like he has done for the last sixty years.

Machines roar, and hammers strike shoe nails,

but we can still hear the Mexican radio.

The smell of rubber cement and

I am a girl again, learning to sew.

Dirt in my ears. Dirt in my nose. Smile.

Dirt stuck between my teeth and dad says

find something to clean, baby girl

Later, we take a ride around the plaza

coated with tourists and Dad asks

if I think Mr. Campos is still there

on the side of the road,

selling chile and beans, ladders and wagon wheels

If somewhere he's still there to take my hand and tell me,

"Your grandpa is an angel you know."

I like to think that if you hold real close to home

you can catch a glimpse of yourself,

as the world spirals away.

My grandpa died and that connection to a place, a culture and a home is gone. The spiral lost its center.

“Hey grandpa...

Did you hear about the Spanish-speaking magician? He said 'for my next trick, I will disappear on the count of three. Uno, dos -' but then he vanished without a tres."

Mariano Ortega at the City Shoe Repair in Santa Fe, New Mexico, September 2015. Photo by Jay Dryden.