There are thousands of angels watching you

I never intended to go into education.

When I was in high school, I always thought that I’d end up in something more…actually, I don’t think I even knew what I wanted to do. I’d always done well academically (when I wasn’t purposefully self-sabotaging) and so I think everyone assumed I’d go into finance, or law, or medicine. But I never had any steadfast, clear headed visions of who I wanted to be—more or less, I think I was in a bit of a healthy adrift stage as a teenager, and that sense or state of being pretty much lingered into my 20’s.

By the end of my 7 years as an undergrad, I’d worked as a burger savant at BK, “associate” at Marshall’s, a substitute teacher, GEAR UP and AVID tutor for McAllen ISD, a barista, and part-time reporter for the Winter Texan Times (a small publication that had me interviewing northern elderly folk who would move down to the Valley for the winters). Through 4 colleges (one of which I failed out of), I somehow stumbled into an English degree by the end of it, but I remember still not knowing what it is I was supposed to do. At one point, I took some introductory training classes to get my teaching certificate but, for reasons I can’t remember, quickly bailed. I was lucky that I had professors who would push me to apply to graduate school and, somehow, this emotionally stunted twentysomething ended up with a full ride to Purdue. This completely changed the trajectory of my life; I would move to Indiana for 7 years for my Master’s and PhD, meet my now wife, and head off to Wisconsin for my first tenure-track job, before leaving to follow her to Seattle. I was lucky in that I had a strong support group: no matter how far away, I knew that my mom would inevitably pray for me, that my sister would make me laugh on the phone with her shenanigans (and later on, phone calls with my nephews), and the many shitposts on my Facebook wall from the long time friends I’d had back in Texas. But there was one person who was my steadfast defender, champion, and overall backbone throughout my life, including and especially after I had left Texas.

This butthead cropped me out of this photo to use it as her Facebook profile pic

When I was born, my family lived with my paternal grandmother (Josefina) and my aunt Lisa. Lisa was a high school senior when I stumbled into this world and there are numerous pictures of us, of her cradling me as a baby, rocking me as a toddler, laying next to me on the brown carpet floor of my aunt Martha’s carpet, and of us sitting next to each other at my little cousin Kelsey’s wedding. Lisa started out as a teacher and worked her way up to an assistant principal—at one point, we worked at the same middle school while I was a tutor. I remember going to her office during lunch and just seeing how deftly she interacted with students—one time I was waiting just outside her office while she was reprimanding a student for misbehaving in class. She never yelled, resorted to violence, or even raised her voice—she just looked sternly at this student and, in her classic teacher voice, said “I’m very disappointed in you.” This kid, who was a bit of a cholo-wannabe, just burst into tears and apologized. She comforted him, talked him through what she wanted him to work on, and sent him on his way. The kids at this school came from rough backgrounds; many from poor, working class and immigrant neighborhoods and families who did manual labor to make ends meet. To give you a sense of how rough they were, I once tried to stop a fight between two sixth grade girls, who quickly shoved me against the wall and proceeded to beat the living shit out of each other (I had to get another teacher and, later, file a police report). These kids were tough because they had to be, and yet they all respected (and sometimes revered) “Ms. Reynoso” and, when they found out I was her nephew, me by proxy. Hell, if I caught one of them doing something they weren’t supposed to, the first thing out of their mouths was “don’t tell Ms. Reynoso.” It wasn’t that she was strict or a disciplinarian, it was that she expected them to do good things and genuinely believed in them and she poured that same care into her many nieces and nephews, myself included.

All throughout grad school, she would call to check in on me. She sent me money to help fix my piece of shit Volkswagen when I hit a curb driving to campus, she’d take me to dinner every time I’d drive down to the Valley as a broke-ass grad student and fill my gas tank up. Lisa did all kinds of things for us—when my sister was in high school, a teacher was just straight up mistreating her in class (grading her more harshly than her classmates, chastising her for things the rest of the class got away with), so my mom scheduled a parent-teacher conference. Lisa found out about it and insisted on joining. Now, I wasn’t there when this happened, but my sister said that Lisa marched into that conference and, in her stern, education-terminator way, verbally dismantled this teacher and everything she was doing wrong, to the point that by the end of the meeting, this woman was groveling. My sister said that her and my mom didn’t say a word the whole time, just watched on as my aunt went through lesson plans, graded papers, and gave her a seminar on pedagogy.  She was an advocate of many things, including fellow amputees after she lost a leg from a medical scare, but even moreso, she was an advocate for us. I’ve lost count of how many of us nieces and nephews became her godchildren on our confirmations, baptisms, first communions—it was kind of expected that you’d ask Lisa to be your godmother for one of those events (something we’d always joke about). On an almost biweekly basis, she would call me just to bitch about my dad (her brother), which never failed to make me laugh.

So many of my family members are educators—teachers, counselors, and administrators. I was the first professor in the family and through every bachelors, masters, and PhD graduation ceremony, Lisa was in the audience. She was the first person to stay at my apartment when I moved to Platteville for my first academic job and she bought me a bed. Whenever I really needed something, Lisa stepped in, even at times when I specifically told her not to, wielding her stubbornness like a sledgehammer.

Said stubbornness, on full display as she spars with her constant antagonist and future caregiver—-my sister

For the past few years, she was on dialysis due to her diabetes, and subsequently was put on a waiting list for a kidney transplant. A bit over a month ago (timelines get fuzzy for me for this sort of thing), she got really sick again and was hospitalized, but pulled through…at least for a while. And then, on Tuesday, August 6, I was in the office when my wife called me into the living room, where my sister told me that Lisa had passed away. There was that initial devastating punch to the gut, the heaving sobs, after which my wife immediately pushed me to book the next flight home for the funeral. I’m writing this now, at my sister’s house in her office, having spent the past few days running errands, writing obituaries, coordinating with family, sifting through boxes and closets and looking at old pictures and the rational part of my brain knows she’s gone. But there’s still the part of me that hasn’t accepted it, hasn’t quite grasped that this thing is real and I’m mentally looking ahead to the funeral, knowing that that’s the moment it’s gonna really hit.

I’ve had this recurring dream that started in my twenties where I’m driving in a car and, suddenly, I realize that I’m no longer in control and the car is moving of its own accord. And every time, it’s pulling me up as I’m driving up an overpass. This has been such a recurring dream that it has led to intermittent anxiety attacks while driving up an overpass in real life. What’s most frightening about the dream is the sensation that you’re being pulled up, up, and up and waiting to be plummeted to your death.

That’s what I feel like right now. As if I’m seeing myself being pulled to the moment my heart finally gets broken. I know there’s nothing that I can do except lean into my feelings, lean onto my family, and let my mind go to those times when she was still here. Appreciate who she was, because who she was helped shape who I am. A lot of our family have this belief that when your loved ones die, they become the angels who watch over you. All I know is that, if true, I’ve got another in my corner just as she was when she was still here.