Family can’t wait till it’s too late

DAVID SILVA

Somewhere in my sister Diana’s home is a box wrapped in pretty paper.

I don’t know if the box is large or small, shaped like a cube, or

long and narrow as a carton of flowers. In fact, I don’t really know

if it’s a box at all. It could be one of those brightly colored bags

with two looped handles on it, the kind so popular among people who

never learned to gift-wrap.

But knowing my sister, it’s probably a box. I don’t know where it

rests in my sister’s home -- in one of her closets, or her bedroom,

or on top of a shelf in her kitchen. But wherever it is, I know it’s

no longer as bright and pretty as the day it was wrapped. I imagine

it has sat undisturbed for long weeks, a thin layer of dust obscuring

the words, “To Davey, from Diana, Hugo, Danielle and Madeline.”

The box is my Christmas gift, meant to be handed to me on

Christmas Day, just before or after I hand my sister and the family

their gifts. That was the plan. But Christmas got away from me last

year. The day began at my mom’s house and ended, for me, at my sister

Linda’s. It was a huge deal at Linda’s -- dozens of us all packed

into small rooms, eating and drinking and exchanging gifts. We sang

karaoke and danced and told loud, obnoxious jokes, and before long it

was late and I was over-stimulated and wanted to go.

“It’s late, and I’ve got an hour’s drive ahead of me,” I said. So

I made my goodbyes and left, and an hour later was home.

Back at Diana’s house, the gift that was meant to be opened by me

that day sat and waited. And it’s sat there and waited ever since.

It’s been a busy time for me. At the beginning of the year, I

moved an hour farther away from my family. My life has grown

increasingly complicated; my job more demanding of my time. My

weekdays filled, I put the personal maintenance stuff off until the

weekends, and the weekends -- the weekends just fly by.

Between the time I last saw my sister and my nieces and today, a

day before I will see them again, more than a year has passed.

Somewhere in Diana’s home, my Christmas gift sits and waits.

Family is important to me, I tell people. I’ve said as much in

this column a dozen times. Family is important. But in my life there

are many important things that tug at my sleeve and make designs on

my time. Family is important, but so are bosses and landladies and

girlfriends and mechanics and barbers and repairmen who can only come

sometime between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekends. These people do

not wait and do not understand. Family can wait, I tell myself.

Family will understand.

My mother, who knows better, disagrees. Since Dec. 25, she has

begun every phone conversation with “Have you called Diana?”

No.

“Mijo, you need to call your sister. She has your gift waiting for

you. It isn’t right.”

And every time I feel a flash of anger, a momentary annoyance, as

if I were being distracted from something terribly important by a

small, persistent child tugging at my sleeve.

“I’ll get to it, Mom,” I’ll say. “Stop worrying about it. It’s all

right.”

“It’s not all right,” she’ll say.

My life has gotten more complicated, my days filled with many

important things, all demanding my immediate attention. And late one

night in bed, waiting for sleep, a thought crashes into my head with

all the clarity of a brick through a window. The thought crowds out

all others, is suddenly no longer a brick, but a bird -- a great

California condor of a bird that unfolds its wings. And suddenly I

know I cannot sleep, will never drift off with this beast in front of

me.

I have not spoken with my sister and my nieces in more than a

year, the thought tells me. It’s not all right.

And I rise from my bed and pace. I go into the kitchen and drink a

glass of water and shake. I pick up the phone, but it’s 2 a.m. It’s

too late, I think, and these words -- it’s too late -- hit me with

such painful force that I set down the phone and am on the edge of

tears.

I once interviewed a man who had just turned 102. I asked him what

was the most important thing life had taught him, and his answer,

spoken in a harsh whisper, was that all of life is over in five

minutes. Before the year was out the man was dead.

I’m 39, and life has taught me nothing.

The next morning, I call my sister. Can I come and see you this

weekend? I ask. “Of course you can,” she answers. “I’ve got your gift

here, waiting for you.”

Will the girls be there? “They’ll be here,” she says. “They miss

you.”

I hang up the phone, and think that if I’m very lucky, there might

still be time.

* DAVID SILVA is a Times Community News editor. Reach him at (909)

484-7019, or by e-mail at david.silva@latimes.com.