Daisy Rosario
Appearances
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
Hello. Yeah. Thank you. Yes? Hi. So my father had just died, and after three days of sitting in my teeny tiny studio apartment staring at walls and eating in excess, it was finally Friday, the funeral. I was eager to get the funeral over with. I wanted the event of my father's dying to be finished so I could just mourn and grieve, but it felt like there was still so much business to be had.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
It was about two hours before the funeral when I received a text message from my mother. It said, I just called your grandmother to give her my condolences. Your brother was there. You're going to get to meet him. My brother and I had never met, never spoken, never seen each other, nothing.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
We were raised on opposite coasts by our moms, him in California and me in Brooklyn, pretty much because, well, my dad was not a good man. And you should know that I'm fine with this fact. My father was a thug, a drug dealer. Sometimes to keep it simple, I like to say he was what rappers claim to be all the time. But more than anything, he was a fighter. He was a fighter in the streets.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
He was a prison boxing champion. And I watched him fight for over two years as AIDS ravaged his once very strong body. In the end, we had to make the decision to take him off of life support. And that was the week that I had had when I got this text message from my mother. So I had no energy or emotional stamina by which to be nervous or even worried about meeting my brother.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
But I do remember thinking two things. I remember thinking one, I was hoping he would be a distraction because my recent reconnection with the family had made me something of a novelty and I was a little tired of being stared at. And two, I was hoping that he was weird like me because I don't quite fit in with my dad's side of the family.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
My boyfriend and I took the A train deep into Brooklyn to the funeral home, and when we got there, we were greeted outside by one of my cousins, who, when she saw me, said, oh, Daisy, your brother's in there. Go meet him. She said it like that. She said it like a command, as if it would not have occurred to me otherwise to do so.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
In my head, I reverted to being like a 12-year-old girl, and all I could think was, duh. So I walk in the building and all of a sudden I realize that I'm kind of hiding behind my boyfriend and I'm peeking over his shoulder as we get up the stairs. I wasn't really nervous about it until that moment when I realized this is about to happen right now.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And I got up the stairs and I tried to peek into the room because I wanted to get a glimpse of my brother before, you know, he saw me. And when I peeked in, I spotted him right away. I did. It was hard not to. He was the only person who was sitting with the family whom I hadn't met before, who was in the right age range. I knew he was supposed to be about a year and a half older than me.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
But more than anything, he looked like me. I mean, he really looked like me. My entire life, I've always been told how much I look like my mom. And it's true. If you saw her, I got my skin color from her and my hair. But there's always been a little something about my face. that I didn't quite know where it came from. It looked a little different.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And if you asked me to tell you what it was, I couldn't explain it possibly. And the minute I saw my brother, he looked exactly like that inexplicable thing. Excited whispers started in the room as everyone realized I was standing at the door. And as I started to make my way across, everyone turned to me with this excited expectation. I wasn't expecting to see that at a funeral.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
It was more like the look I would think you would give to the entrance of a particularly grand cake at a wedding. And as I made my way across the room, I stopped in front of my brother and he stood up and cameras came out and flashes went off as we started to hug because my family are emotional paparazzi. I had no idea what to say to him. And I just said the first thing that came into my head.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And for you sports fans out there, I say, please forgive me because this is over a year ago. It made more sense at the time. But the very first thing I said to my brother was I whispered in his ear, you are the Brett Favre to my Eli Manning. I was so worried that after winning the Super Bowl, like all the newspapers would be writing about me and I'm kind of a shy player.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
But now that the Jets have traded for you last minute with all this controversy, nobody's writing about me at all. That's actually what I said to him. He didn't say anything. He just kind of started to sit down and I wondered if I had said something wrong. The minute we broke our embrace, the family kind of started to swarm me.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
People were running up to me trying to like say hello and show me pictures and my Aunt Margie barged right through the middle of them all and in a voice you, again, wouldn't think anyone would use for anything at a funeral said, oh, so you finally met your brother, huh? Well, maybe you can get him to talk because he doesn't say anything. She was standing about two feet away from him.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
I looked at all of this and I took it in and it occurred to me that if I was in my brother's position, it would look like I had been raised by this part of the family. And I didn't want him to think that I was the chosen child while he was out in California with no one looking for him because the truth was that no one had looked for either one of us.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And so when everyone was slightly out of earshot, I leaned into my brother again and I said, Hey, I just want you to know, I didn't grow up with these people either. Um, I was raised by my mom, just like you were raised by yours. And I just met most of them at the hospital this week. So even then it's not like I was there because he called me. I went looking for him a few years ago.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
My brother didn't say anything, but he shifted in his chair and it felt like a larger shift had taken place as well. I don't know if it was that the air between us had warmed or that we were making more eye contact. But in a little while, I looked up to realize that we were talking.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
He and I had kind of moved into the corner away from everyone, standing by the door where everyone could see us because it was very clear that everyone wanted to be looking at us. And we just kind of weren't standing around commenting on the situation at hand. We weren't trying to catch up on everything that we had missed. No heavy conversation.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
Just kind of united in our awkwardness against this room full of an extended family and friends of a family that we didn't know. At one point, he turned to me and he said, what are you doing this weekend? Because I'm here until Monday and I hope you know I want to see you every day until then. I was surprised and I liked the idea of it.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
I could see why now that we were beginning to chat, but I still didn't know what it meant. And then a little while later he added, oh, by the way, I have a son. His name is Damien and he's 12. You have a nephew. I really like the sound of that because I'd grown up an only child and I never thought I would have a niece or a nephew, but I still didn't even know what that meant.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
I mean, was I ever even gonna meet this kid? As the day wound down, it was time for the speeches. And the official eulogy was given by one of our many cousins. This one happened to be a preacher. And he did a good job.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
He recited what he said was my father's favorite psalm, and he told a couple of little anecdotes about my father's last few years, his realizations that the problems that he had gotten into in his youth had led him to where he was at the time. For example, he... He had always been known by this nickname on the streets.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
Ever since he was really young, my father had always been known by this nickname, so much so that more people in the room at the funeral home were calling him by that name than by his real name. And in his last few years, he didn't want the kids in the family to call him by that name. Now that name was trouble, because that's what he is and that's what he was.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And when you're from where he's from, you just need to let people know what they're dealing with right away. There's no effort to be clever. It's just kind of like, this is the deal. So my father always was trouble. But in his last couple years he insisted that the little kids in the family called him Bubbles because he didn't want them to associate him with such a negative name, you know?
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
Which for him is like the sweetest thing, you know? And so they talked about that and I thought it was nice and then the preacher wrapped it up and sat back down. I started to look around the room and I realized that people were kind of looking at me. And while I didn't have anything planned to say, you know, I had that moment where I thought, well, you only go to your father's funeral once.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And if you don't say anything, you might regret it. And so I got up and I made my way across the room. I turned and I faced out into the audience and they were just staring at me. I mean, much differently than this, they had spent their whole lives hearing about me, but not meeting me. So they were not just looking at me, they were absorbing me with their eyes.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
They were trying to catch up on years worth of information in just that look. And since I had nothing planned and I didn't know where to begin, I just started there. And I said, I wish you could all see what it's like looking out onto all of you looking back at me, but
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
It's a lot, and you know, you all very kindly keep coming up to me and telling me how sorry you are, but I have to tell you, I'm so sorry for your loss, because you all know him so much better than I ever did or ever will. You have stories about him. I barely have any. I only have a couple from when I was really young.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
Like, I have a story about the time that he promised to take me to the Bronx Zoo, and he took me to the Bronx. And then we sat in somebody's apartment most of the day and then he got me to the zoo about 10 minutes before it closed, ran me through the exit so we didn't have to pay and like went as fast as we could back out the entrance.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
Or like the time that he said he was gonna take me to the movies and he took me to see Exorcist 3. Which was like extra weird because I hadn't seen Exorcist 1 or 2 and I was eight years old.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
Like you guys, they laughed and I was glad because I didn't want them to think that I was making fun of him so much as those were the only stories I had and I had long ago stopped associating any animosity with them. And I just started to see the humor in them myself.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
I finished up what I had to say, I made my way back to my seat and I was completely shocked when my brother got up and he walked across the room. to the podium. I mean, if I didn't have anything to say, what was he going to say? He'd only met our father one time. He was spending the summer in New York with his mother's extended family.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And I think one of our aunts took him to visit our father in prison. That was their only meeting when he was seven years old. So what was he going to say? He got up there and he looked out on everyone. He paused for a moment, seemingly taken aback by the crowd the same way I was. And then he began. I don't really care that he's dead. I mean, it's not that I don't care.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
I don't want to be rude or anything. It's just that like, you know, I didn't know him at all. And it's like, I never even spoke to him. So, you know, I don't want to be rude. It's just, I wasn't even going to come here today. I mean, when they called and told me about it, I was thinking, why bother? But then on the phone, they said, you know, your sister wants to meet you.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And when he said that, he started to well up and he started to cry. And he didn't just start to cry, he started to bawl. And you could tell just by looking at him that he was not someone who cried often. And if you couldn't tell that by his demeanor, you could tell that by his reaction to crying because it didn't make any sense. He didn't try to wipe away his tears.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
He tried to take the heels of his palm and jam everything back into his eyes as if everything was just gonna go right back where it came from. And then he continued and he said, and now I've met her. And his voice broke up some and he pointed towards me and she's beautiful. And I was so stunned. I didn't know what to think or to feel.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
I knew he wanted to like have dinner this weekend, but I didn't know that I was the reason he had even gotten on the plane.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And so I just sat there overwhelmed by the sense of flattery, which I tell you when you get up in the morning to go to your dad's funeral and you put on that terrible little black dress that you've bought for just that occasion, you do not think you're gonna feel that at any point during that day. But that is all I could feel, just shock and flattering.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
My whole family, because at a funeral, we all sit in the front row together. I'm sitting in the front row with them, and as this is happening, they all are looking at him and they are crying, and then they all turn to me and they say, Daisy, go be with your brother. Go be with your brother. Go stand next to your brother. Go be with your brother.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
Because for people that I didn't grow up knowing, they have no problem telling me exactly what they want me to be doing at any given moment. And so I got up and I kind of awkwardly walked over there and I got there and realized that I had nothing. So I just kind of awkwardly tapped him on the shoulder and stood back and I guess I'll be here if you need me, Pose.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And he wrapped it all up by saying, oh, yeah, and I have a son. So, you know, like the Rosario name is gonna go on or whatever. This is how I became both an aunt and a younger sister at my father's funeral. We did end up hanging out that weekend. We went to see four Christmases. It was fine. We ended up talking and texting and emailing each other every day in the months that followed.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
And when my birthday came up just about two months after, I was so happy and completely surprised to receive a huge shipping envelope full of birthday cards, 28 of them in fact, one for every single year that we had not had together. We were constantly surprised to this day to realize how much we actually have in common for two people that didn't actually grow up anywhere near each other.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
Genetics are a pretty amazing thing. We laugh a lot and I've gotten to go to his wedding. He's since gotten married and he's come to visit here and I've gone out there and taken my nephew to play video games and things like that. It's really amazing.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
But it was kind of crazy because one of the first things that we agreed upon, that first weekend, just sitting in a diner and talking, one of the things that we just both could not deny was that as much as you want it to happen a different way, you know, I didn't want my dad to have to die to meet my brother. I didn't want it to happen in this pattern.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: The Love Hurts SLAM
As much as you don't want any of that, with the lives that we had led, with the things that I had been going through the years before and the things that my brother had going on in his life, we realized that it couldn't have happened any other way. And it'd be nice if it could, but it is what it is, and we couldn't be happier to find each other. Thank you.