finally breaking the coconut

like a typical puerto rican man, he could yell, he could punch, he could break things, but he could never break the coconut.

the tainos revered the coconut tree. in their folklore, it was a gift from the goddess of fertility, Atabey, who wanted to provide her people with nourishment and shelter.

they believed it connected them to the divine deities of the ocean, that it could grant wishes, connect lovers, protect families & homes from harm and negativity and that its milk could purify the soul.

they referred to it as a selfless, giving fruit that provided the necessities of life; a symbol of strength and resilience. their hard brown shell, protecting the soft, jelly-like pale flesh that symbolized the heart and soul.

we never kept coconuts in the house since my abuela was highly allergic, but at my nonni’s i ate coconut-almond cookies, and drank bottomless virgin pina coladas.

My father told me few memories about my abuelita, mostly about her accent, about her love for her family, and about her cooking. one thing he told me though, was how my abuelita used to freeze coconut milk into little ice-cubes, a treat, they ate on hot days. my father hates milk, but he loved limber.

his grandparents, his grandmother specifically, were the most important people in the world to him –besides me ofc. he went to their house often, they picked him up from school, they were the people he was most afraid to tell he had gotten my mother pregnant.

when his abuela died he was only 21, i was 3. i remember him at her funeral, he sat there in the church, she helped build with my abuelito, straight faced. i remember asking him why he wasn't crying like everyone else.

my father wasn't good at showing emotion, at crying when he needed to.

like a typical puerto rican man, he could yell, he could punch, he could break things, but he could never break the coconut.

i grew up thinking my father was the strongest man in the world, that he could protect me from anything and everything, and he did.

i was lucky enough to have a father who did everything for me. he fed me, he gave me everything i ever could've needed or wanted, he sacrificed himself for me to have a good life all while telling me he loved me, often. but he was not good at being there emotionally.

when my abuelita had died, my abuelito had began to lose to his memory. my abuela and her sisters took turns taking care of him, and i would go with her on her days, mostly going to play with my cousin who lived with him full-time.

he had a funny accent, a handlebar mustache and big glasses. he would stand in his garden staring at his crops and he would often hug me for long periods of time, tightly, something my cousin was very jealous of. idk if he remembered who i was but i know he loved me all the same.

when he had died, i was 12, my father 30.

i remember him pretending he was angry.

i had gotten super into my culture around then. mostly since most of my friends were also Hispanic, but partially because i felt like i had wasted the time i had with him not asking him about his home.

i wanted to know everything. i asked my abuela about her grandparents, about their village, about the foods she grew up eating and the ones i had not tried yet that i wanted to. she told me about how we were “boricuas” that boriken, was the real name of the island, that we originated from tainos, africans and the french settlers.

when i was 15, i had became more spiritual. i got into ancestor veneration, something i had grew up with unknowingly. we had a wall of dead relatives, some my abuela never met, and a million shrines to my abuelita and abuelito accompanied by crucifixes, holy water, her rosary's, cigars and the ashes of our deceased cat.

i had made an altar myself. i had lit inscense, brought them offerings of coffee, rum, and cigarettes and when i had went to my moms for the summer i had asked my father to take care of it, he told me he would.

he wasn’t very religious after abuelita had died, but i hoped that i could help him see that they were always around, if he looked for them.

i had gotten a text from him maybe three days in to my trip, telling me the coffee had disappeared. that he had put it there and when he went to replace it, it was drank.

i, of course, was not surprised about this. i brought them coffee every morning, i knew they drank it. but i know that he found catharsis in that.

ive noticed over the last 5 years, that my father has been slowly chiseling away at the endocarp. that he's slowly finding his way, to opening up and feeling.

recently, he was telling me about abuelita, and how she had visited him in his dream. this was something she didn't do too often, but wasn't unusual for her either. she had come to tell him she liked my stepmom, that she was watching over him and that she wanted to bring him her favorite album,

and just like that i saw my dad cry.

he began telling me about his memories of her. how soft she was with him, how seen, and loved she made him feel, how much he missed her and he hadn't been allowing himself to.

i had never felt prouder of him. he had finally broken the coconut, and he didn't even know it.