Paying tribute to Rafael, friend to all

It’s hard to think of what to say when a loved one passes away, especially when they’ve been a constant in your life from the very beginning.

That’s how I feel when I think about my dad, Rafael E. Berdecia, the life he lived and what he meant to me. I have this want to say all the right words in the perfect order, but it's challenging when your mind is numb and your heart is broken.

I try to think of the positive in the moment we are, I think back on the good times and good memories we share and the moments we made together and I look to dad’s friends and I can see the hurt and void that both cancer and the social distancing practices we had to follow created. Both took time and energy from dad that we’ll never get back, leaving us asking what if this year hadn’t forced us to keep away from one another when we needed each other the most.

I know everyone around dad wanted to spend more moments with him, make more memories to hold onto forever and recall fondly. I only wish we could have given him more time to do that.

Dad was always an adventurer at heart and a friend to everyone that he met and I like to think that he’s still doing the same things he did in life in the here after.

Dad had a talent for making friends, making people feel comfortable and at ease, knowing how to best keep the good time going, to keep a positive spirit and to share his gifts and big heart with everyone that entered his life.

I loved hearing all the stories and good things everyone had to say about dad, from being the best damn auto technician there was out there to the man that would go to any length to make the people around him feel like family.

It was Jeanie Moore, a very kind and caring friend of dad’s that told me, there are three types of people when it comes to an accident on the road, “Those that freeze in the moment, those that drive on, and those get out and help,” Well, my dad certainly was the third of those and I’ll always remember how when I was still a kid when we were driving back home one day, a car ahead of us swerved off the road and hit a tree.

My dad stopped our car and both my parents sprung out from the vehicle to go help the woman stuck inside, her face a bloody mess from the glass and her body shoved into the back seat, pinned by the steering column that had been crushed onto her. Dad, without even thinking, took off his shirt to give to her to stop the bleeding, that’s the main thing I remember from all this, how my dad literally pulled the shirt off his back to help someone he didn’t even know. Then with another man that stopped to render aid, ran to the front of the vehicle to stop a fire that was beginning to ignite to prevent it from spreading and engulfing the rest of the vehicle.

We still don’t know to this day who that woman was in the car wreck, if she made it alright or what happened after all that. But I like to think that everyone that stopped so quickly, saved her life and how everyone goes through moments like this in their lives, whether it be from personal tragic losses to our own personal turmoil which can feel like the world has just come to a full stop.

It doesn’t though, like time, the world keeps pushing on from moment to moment, pushing us ever forward no matter what we do in our lives, so we all try to make the best of what we have and what we can do in those moments.

Like starting, I keep on thinking of what to say to bookend all my words, what dad might say in this moment. Knowing him, he’d probably crack a joke, just to lighten the tension, because that’s always been his way. I miss those jokes already, how I’d always shake my head but crack a smile about it anyway. I’m just sad there won’t be any more to hear.

But I know dad wouldn’t want me to be sad, he wouldn’t want me to dwell, he would want me to cheer up and he would try to make me feel better in his own dad way. He was always doing that, even when the cancer was at its worst, he found a way to find humor in the situation.

And that’s what I want to take with me from all this, a brighter outlook, a silver lining, the humor in the moment, no matter how bleak.

Because that’s what he would do.

Thank you, to everyone, family, friends and everyone else in between, for being part of my dad’s life and filling his last days with your love and allowing dad his last wishes of being able to see all of you. I know it meant the world to him, because he would light up and smile every time.

Thank you