After spending a year in Northern Spain with my father's sister's family, I reunited with my parents and siblings in Bogotá, Colombia, instead of our home in Los Angeles, California. My parents were starting over again from scratch and setting up shop to establish themselves. Mom, who was a perpetual optimist, had recently hit the jackpot, and with an endless display of excitement she was paying off debts, shopping for new home furniture, and preparing for my milestone birthday celebration.

On that fortuitous day when a one-legged lotto ticket vendor approached my mom insisting that she buy a number, I was with her walking along La Carrera Septima. As she reached for the ticket of her choice with twinkling eyes, she promised the both of us a handsome reward in the event that her number won the big one. Not only would she tip the ol' man generously but she would also grant me a splendid Quinceañera birthday bash.

In Colombia I discovered that one's fifteenth birthday symbolized the pivotal point in a girl's life, demanding a rite of passage experience. On that transitioning day into adulthood, the jubilee usually began with a morning mass, ritual practices to reaffirm one's vows to God, and ended with an evening dinner party wherein the debutant princess would be celebrated by loved ones rejoicing and dancing the night away to everyone's heart's content.

In this anticipatory context is when I unexpectedly experienced a dark night of the soul. During one particular night, out of nowhere, I suddenly felt my psyche being assaulted by the incomprehensible premonition that I would soon be left motherless. Clutching my contracting heart and sobbing inconsolably underneath my bed covers, I felt a suffocating sensation of loss. I knew full well that my beautiful mamá was in vigorous health, yet still, I could not escape the fatalistic presentiments assailing me. With tear-soaked eyes, and in silence as to not awaken my sister who slept soundly across from me, I stared into the darkness where a haunting shadow, like a traveling cloud, sneaked in through my bedroom window, and bouncing off my vanity mirror with assailing motions, consumed my papered walls and lodged itself in the interior crevices of my disquietude, until the following day at school my teachers and classmates looked at me with concern.

"You look sleep-deprived. Why are your eyes so bloodshot, and puffy?" my teacher asked.

"I don't know," I responded, genuinely not knowing.

Feeling perplexed and exhausted, I headed straight home after school, instead of stopping by at my parent's bakery to help out behind the counter for a few hours as was my customary duty. Once home, a girlfriend from a neighboring school showed up, not having found me at the bakery.

"Does your mami have a brother in Los Angeles?" she asked me as soon as I opened the door.

"Yes," I replied.

"Well, he died." Her callous matter-of-fact tone horrified me.

"What?" I uttered, jarred by her bolting shock.

"Your mami cried and cried," she blabbed-on.

I pushed back, pleading, "Can you go now?"

"Your mami kept crying out: Aparicito, our Aparicito, over and over again on the phone," she crudely persisted.

"Get out! Go please!" I growled at her.

While I was closing my door on her she whispered, "I'm sorry," with an arousing semblance of acknowledging pity.

My body collapsed against the shut door while unfamiliar wailing sounds drained out of me. My senses felt stretched beyond the limits of matter and compelled to verify reality, I dragged myself over to my bedroom window to view life down below. As I watched cars drive by, busses stop, and passengers hop-on-and off, I noticed how people continued going about their business with a strange, incomprehensible aliveness that stupefied me. Even the leaves on the trees seemed to sway with life's continuum, ludicrously oblivious to my sweet uncle's death.

In that moment I knew why the night prior had brought me such horrific sadness. It was Aparicito, my mami's little brother, my uncle, and best friend who had come to say farewell, en route, already disengaging from this earth's mantle. In that intuitive state, a torrential heartache had fallen upon me, as I sensed his imminent absence. This was a confirmation that we shared a consciousness connectivity which transcended time and space. Such wealthy measure of love produced an equivalent amount of pain, while wondrously vanquishing my fear of death.

Aparicito's bright light elicited our rancorous families to reconcile in his absence. It was beautiful to experience the alchemical process of turning grief into a tonic of redemptive humility. Aparicito was turning twenty-eight that coming May, and he would have graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in June of that same year.

Our last time together was in Hollywood, prior to my leaving for Spain. My uncle had come down from San Francisco to say goodbye. It was 1972. After visiting my Peita (grandma) at the Ontra cafeteria where she worked on Vine Street across from Capital records, we walked along Hollywood Boulevard towards a news stand on Cahuenga, and then we headed to Sunset Boulevard and back towards Vine and Sunset to a record store on that corner. The sun was shining strong through clear blue skies, prominently highlighting the pristine Cinerama Dome to one side. I was twelve, and he was twenty-three, yet still we carried on conversations with trusting equanimity.

"Are you happy about leaving?" my uncle asked me.

"Ahhh, yeah, sure Tio," I answered.

He looked at me unconvinced. "But I thought you loved your new school and your friends."

"I do, I like my friends very much, Tio. I love them actually, and playing on the volleyball team is the most fun. I guess I really love my school, and I'm getting really good at playing accordion too." I caught myself getting excited. "Maybe, it's not going to be that easy, Tio." Sadness began to creep in as I reflected upon my predicament.

"Your parents can't see this, Begito?" My uncle asked with a look of bewilderment. "I love my sister, but really, I can't agree with her decision, or your dad's. Their irrational choices radically change your life. Can't they see how the lack of continuity affects you?"

"It's difficult, Tio," I replied, attempting to make light of the situation and his disapproving manner.

"You just got back from a year in Bogotá, and now that you're happy and you're catching up, it's unbelievable."

We continued walking in silence while I thought, "But I have no other choice except to leave." I saw how my parents had to struggle. Dad was out the door by the crack of dawn to prepare his breads and pastries, and Mom was juggling with house chores, her beautician job, a one-year-old baby, helping dad at their new bakery, plus caring for us three older kids, and our spunky family dog. Besides, I was now attending a private school in a nearby neighborhood because our designated public school had quickly become intolerable. We moved away from Hollywood to another city neighborhood I had never imagined.

"Tio, the private school I'm attending is really expensive and it's far from our home."

Aparicito listened impatiently. "Why did they have to move there? So far away from here, and your Peita. Now, no one in the family can just walk over and visit you guys anymore."

"I know, Tio," I answered with a feeling of helplessness.

"In Hollywood you were getting acting jobs and loving it. Imagine if your parents had stayed put, you would have been able to help them out with your earnings." He shrugged his shoulders.

"I know," I said, and instantly remembered the recent offer I got for a guest role in The Brady Bunch that my parents declined because they couldn't take me.

Aparicito noticed my sullen look. "You're strong, Begito, you'll be okay, just follow your heart."

"Okay, Tio." I smiled with an eager desire to soak my mind in his empowering words.

"You know what I mean, Begito," he said and smiled.

I nodded hoping it was so. With optimism, I thought that wherever I ended up had to be better than the impoverished, dangerous, and charmless neighborhood we were living in.

Never before had I seen lacquered, lowrider and bouncing Chevy Impalas with “Cholos” cruising slowly behind the wheel, looking to riot rivaling gangs, and even engage in drive-by shootings if feeling dissed. When walking to school in the mornings passing by front lawns, I noticed them covered with junk, and a “Vato” with threatening, glaring eyes, would be standing proud by his shiny car, drinking beer, in a white tank top, and chains hanging from his pants. At school, during recess, I was always picked on. At the tetherball court, or handball court, or in the lunch line, I got called names like nerd, teacher's pet, dork, goodie two-shoes, and had my tray of food taken away from me. The beatdowns provoked after school fights with kids encircling us, and cheering on, mostly my opponent.

But somehow, I don't know why two beautiful hardcore warrior Chicana twin sisters, Sandra and Silvia, became my besties. They were the coolest, toughest, and most loyal. They would enthusiastically watch my back, while embracing me like a part of their own “familia.” Unbeknownst to me, I was being primed to have their backs as well. Then, one fateful day walking home alone, I was attacked by a group of boys who pinned me against the bushes and groped me until I fought my way out of their perverse clutches. When I got home, I demanded being immediately transferred to a private school.

"I gotta say, honestly, Tio, I'm actually happy that I'm leaving. I mean it." The words exploded out of my mouth as my eyes welled up. "I just wish everyone could come with me."

"Okay, you know what's best for you," he said with thoughtful eyes.

When we stepped inside Wallichs musical sanctuary, Aparicito's expression lit up. Like a passionate aficionado, he took in the wide display of art works on record covers plastered all over the walls. And grooving to the music, he jumped around from one section to another, quickly flipping through records with studious delight. While I sat with headphones on inside a glass booth, he handed me music samples to listen to. Aparicito turned me on to “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder's “Superstition,” and Steely Dan's “Reeling in the Years.” On our way out he surprised me with Santana's new record, “No One To Depend On,” as a going away gift, exulting that Carlos Santana was his good friend whom he often photographed at San Francisco concerts.

Walking back to my Peita's job, Aparicito mentioned, "I'm cutting my teeth as a cinematographer while writing a film story that I hope by the time you're back we can make together. It's something like the Billy Jack movie. What do you think?"

My eyes lit up. "Really? Out of sight, Tio! I'm in," I cried out, remembering how that movie had made me laugh, cry, and root for the good guy.

Spurring me on, he added, "Groovy, then don't abandon your dreams, Begito."

"I won't, I promise you I won't," I said with conviction.

"Before you know it, we'll be in Joshua Tree, filming."

Aparicito was a hippie, scholar, and philosopher, who as a young boy in Colombia, attended a secluded monastery to prepare for priesthood, but once in Los Angeles he opted for following the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda at Self Realization Fellowship on Sunset Boulevard, while attending Los Angeles Valley College, and working at Capitol Records as a parking attendant. When visiting my uncle and Peita at their De Longpre apartment, I found Aparicito on his floor mattress sitting in the lotus position, meditating. Their living room was his bedroom, replete with books, and records. The aromas of Peita's delicious Colombian sancocho stews intermingled with the fragrant patchouli incense circulating throughout their home. I would plop myself onto a huge beanbag and take in the vibes of their cozy environment.

Most of my friends from Selma Elementary school also lived in this Hollywood fashion. We walked alone to each other's homes frequently. I found the same kind of laid-back bohemian ambiance as my uncle's, with lava lamps, huge stuffed throw pillows, low furniture, incense burning, and psychedelic space-rock music, Jimi Hendrix, or Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan blaring through the speakers. Unlike my parents who were traditionalists, emulating black and white Hollywood classic film characters.

On Sunday mornings after breakfast, Dad, or Papi, or Aita as we called him, would sit back in his recliner chair, looking like Cary Grant, smoking his pipe, and with closed eyes listen to Mario Lanza operas and Josefina Meneses zarzuelas. Mami, if not in the kitchen, would be in her bedroom practicing fancy hairdos on wigs or on her girlfriend's heads. While my siblings and I sat around the dining table completing Spanish assignments that Dad had prepared for us, and when we displayed an inkling of laziness, Papi would remind us of his childhood, and how he had been robbed of an education, a mother, and a home as a consequence of the Spanish Civil War and the bombing of his beloved town, Guernica.

One unforgettably impressive day was when Aparicito took the family on a magical tour of his college campus in the Valley. Inside the photography department's dark rooms were damp black and white photographs hanging to dry over laundry wires, and students had their heads down, buried in their projects. The English department newspaper printer loudly churned out fresh inked pages as we passed by, and student machinists and writers greeted my uncle and shared their work with him in a cordial, collaborative spirit. The newly created biology building had classrooms with walls of shelves and stacked labeled jars storing specimens in them floating in chemical fluids. Other rooms had wire cages with tiny white mice inside, running endless cycling wheels.

Another day, Aparicito and his girlfriend, Sally, took me to a “Love-In” at Elysian Fields in Griffith Park. The grand scale music scene with its raw liberating wildness mesmerized me. While Aparicito sprinted off with his cameras hanging around his neck capturing moments of unique exhilaration, Sally and I held hands so we would not get lost, as we danced amidst the masses of rebellious “free” lovin' hippies. I couldn't help myself but stare, tantalized at the topless pretty girls in their rustic skirts, moving about with long-haired boys, barefoot on the grass, twirling and colliding into each other's arms, wearing flower headdresses, love beads, and peace symbols, in tune with the psychedelic sounds of live rock and roll like the Moody Blues. My unspoiled eyes marveled at the brazenness of their love demonstrations as they made out and got high.

Around the time when Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy had been murdered, Aparicito appeared on the local nightly news. The sight of his face and body severely bruised and battered brought tears to my eyes. I'll never forget standing in front of the television screen, seeing him propped-up against pillows in a hospital bed, struggling to speak, and describe the assault he had endured. He explained to the news reporter how in the hands of two policemen he had been subjected to the most inhumane brutality. It was after a concert at the Hollywood Palladium. He had walked home a few blocks to his neighborhood street and sat down on the sidewalk to contemplate the magnificence of the full moon in the night sky, when two cops pulled over, and without questioning, got out, grabbed him, and beat him to a pulp. Imagine what would have happened had they found traces of alcohol or marijuana on him. My sweet uncle was an unassuming, sensitive, civil rights activist who volunteered as a photography teacher for underprivileged minority communities. This incident of injustice shook me to the core, and for the first time opened my eyes to the fragility of man.

In those early days of trials and tribulations when my parents were putting down roots in Southern California, our relatives and friends uplifted each other as a supportive and motivating anchor. My mother's sister had married an ex-dancer of Broadway and Hollywood musicals, who now owned a Mexican restaurant in the Silverlake area. On weekends it transformed into a social hub for live jazz music and gay allure. The artistic energy indoors overflowed with sixties multiracial artists, celebrities, gypsy dancers, friends, and family. Outdoors, in the parking lot or along Hyperion Boulevard's sidewalk, we kids played hide-and-seek, hopscotch, jump rope and roller skated and rode our bikes, and we were happily supervised by our ever enchanting uncle Aparicito and his girlfriend Sally, without curfew or malice.

Aparicito's memories piled up in my heart, instigating my immediate return to the States, shortly after my much-subdued Quinceañera celebration/rite of passage. Back in Los Angeles, I could comfort my bereaved Peita, and for hours on end we consoled each other. Amidst boxes filled with Aparicito's artistic photographs and personal belongings, we reminisced, cried, and rejoiced in his honor. When Peita showed me his weather-beaten wallet with my photo inside one of its plastic card holders, she reiterated that he had been looking forward to my return.

Peita bequeathed me his thick silver and turquoise Navajo ring, whispering, "Aparicito was wearing this ring, and I know how much he would love you having it."

On Good Friday in 1977, Aparicito and his girlfriend hiked down the Grand Canyon to the Havasu Waterfalls of The Great Unknown. She sat down to rest at the tranquil river's edge, while he dipped into its anointing waters, and in a sudden instant, the fast-moving and invisible undercurrents swept Aparicito's body away. Downstream eighteen miles, and ten days later, his body was finally found in an area the Hopi call The Underworld, where the soul of the earth lies, and where Aparicito's eternal spirit re-emerged as a traveling cloud.