For Tito Bert, because you are loved...

...and will be terribly missed.

I was thinking of writing about you, but words fail me. I thought maybe drawing you would be easier.

The composition will be in black and white and varying shades of gray. You don’t need an assorted nor ostentatious display of color to be interesting. A tinge of gray gradating into a darker, more solid hue, as if from innocence to maturity. The shadows of youth, not lost, but tucked into the sobriety of age.

I will start with a rough sketch. Tentative lines to achieve a desired end—an exercise in dreaming and believing. A journey of faith.

There will be lines that are casually drawn, as if taking a piece of charcoal and sweeping it across a grainy surface, the tiny valleys of the paper left unmarked. A passage, from one point to another, leaving your imprint on the path taken but conspicuously bare where you do not tread. The flourish says, here I am, and this is where I have chosen to go.

There will be bold strokes, like lines on flesh, showing purpose and confidence. Etched around the mouth for a life spent in laughter, on the forehead for the wisdom of experience, between the brows for earnestness, and around the eyes—left by images perceived and fathomed, by visions dreamed and realized—crinkling at the corners in affirmation.

There is no need to draw the full face, only parts of it, like it’s unfinished. A life well lived but not lived out. Some lines still need to be drawn over, broken lines connected or filled in. I think it’s beautiful like that the drawing, the man. They are the same, neither lacking in character. In fact, to accept the flaws, to embrace the incompleteness shows, I believe, strengthe of character.

With every shaft of light, a shadow is cast. Black and negative space. But the word negative is somehow incongruous for a drawing of you. I’d like to think of it as clean, crisp white that triumphs over black. So there will be more white which, in all its purity, inspires its audience.

The picture will show the perpetual kind smile that is a Tito Bert trademark. The line of the neck almost graceful, belying competence and loyalty. The eyes that—though crinkled with joy—are gleaming with sensitivity, understanding and sincerity, twinkling with a touch of playfulness.

Still, it’s not enough. I cannot show with any number of lines or experiments with tone and texture my gratitude for all that you have given me: fatherly love which I was too proud to accept I needed, much less ask for, but that you have generously showered me; your faith in me and what you believe I can achieve when I am filled with doubt; and the gift of family, through Gretch. Gretch, who is the sister of my heart. My friend, my ally, my hero, my sounding board. The warmth to my objectivity, the logic to my confusion, the fresh perspective to my sometimes one-track mind. And, from the time I was 20 until now, at 40, my best friend in the whole world. You gave me all these, touching my life in a most profound way.

I would draw you or write about you if I could, but I’m not so talented as to do you justice. I can only try. I will, however, wish you a happy, blessed and memorable 75^th birthday, along with the whole of my heart, and pray that it finds its way to you.

Dying for Chocolate: Whodunit #9

Dying for Chocolate is a book in Diane Mott Davidson's culinary mystery series about Goldy Bear (yes, that's the name of the main character and, no, this is not a fairy tale): newly divorced from an abusive husband, desperately trying to be a good mom, working to keep her fledgling catering business afloat, and solving a mystery to boot. Busy woman.


In Dying for Chocolate, Goldy, with her son Arch in tow, is forced to move into the house of Bo and Adele Farquhar in the exclusive Aspen Meadow Country Club as a live-in cook while she has a security system installed in her own home following an incident involving her violent ex-husband. Aside from cooking the Farquhars' meals, she also accepts catering jobs like the fundraising events that keep Adele busy, and intimate themed dinners for their neighbors, the Harringtons.


When Philip Miller, a wealthy psychologist she is dating, dies in a mysterious car accident, Goldy wonders who is responsible for his death. Is it her ex-husband, who might have been driven by jealousy? Philip's sister, who is dependent on him financially and possibly the heir to all his fortune? Weezie Harrington, who is rumored to be having an affair with Philip? Or is it Julian Teller, a quiet, troubled college student who is also Philip's patient?


The novel is interesting in that recipes of dishes Goldy prepares in the story are included between chapters. Maybe to cleanse the palate, to break the monotony of a pretty dry storytelling, or to help the reader imagine how tired, busy and frustrated Goldy must have been, for example, when she dropped a cake she was about to serve and which took her four hours to make.


I thought it was predictable as all the clues suggest that almost all of the characters may be the murderer-- all but one. This character seems to have no motive and a lot of convenient alibis. The fact that the reader's attention is deliberately being drawn away from him (or her) makes it all the more obvious that he (or she) is the villain.


I love the Amelia Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters and the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child, because both Amelia and Jack are thinking characters. Though they have their share of luck-- as when they stumble upon clues, or when they are rescued from particularly sticky situations-- it plays no part in unraveling the mystery. I was disappointed by Goldy because, had the villain not admit to the murder, she would have been clueless to the very end. And she was impossibly lucky, too. When she was poisoned by cantharidin, along with her massively-built, fit and healthy cop friend, it was fortunate that its effect on her 5-foot, overworked, undernourished, caffeine-loaded, stressed body was so minimal and short-lived that she was still able to come to the aid of her cop friend (who was reduced to a helpless, immobile, useless, groaning heap on the bathroom floor) and drive several miles to rescue her son who was drowning in the school swimming pool (and just in the nick of time, too).


I have not read any of Davidson's other books, and I admit to being discouraged by Dying for Chocolate, but she does cook up the most appetizing titles: The Last Supper, The Grilling Season, Killer Pancake and The Cereal Murders (my personal favorite), to name a few. Though it would probably be fun to see what recipes are included in her other books, I, however, am not looking forward to the mystery part.

(image from http://www.sabong.net.ph/forum/showthread.php?t=23931&page=54)

Confessions of a Deathmaiden: Whodunit #8

Tomas Gomez was in a coma. He was sent home by the Abbot-Kinney Medical Center to wait for his death. He was only a little boy and he was not ready to die.


Frances Oliver had four years of training at the Institute for Eternal Living and was called to assist with Tomas Gomez. Her job-- similar to that of a midwife who assists during childbirth-- was to help the dying cross over. But when she met the brain-dead Mexican boy with the sloping forehead, she saw his future, his wife, his children. It was not his time to die.


As a deathmaiden, Frances could not be too attached to a patient. But Tomas was only ten, and she felt that he was cheated of living a full life by someone, and that person had used her. As she set forth to uncover who was responsible, she finds her own life threatened as she gets closer and closer to the truth. Her quest takes her from modern L.A. deep into the heart of Mexico where the ancient Tarascan tribe lives-- their religious practice of cannibalism holding the key to the unraveling of a complicated, exciting and adventure-filled mystery.


Confessions of a Deathmaiden is thrilling and thought-provoking, pushing the reader to re-evaluate his beliefs about life, death and what really matters, mixing fact and fiction in a seamlessly-woven novel.