MY FATHER, MY DAD Marine Corps CPL Jose D. Aviles

Today I visited the grave site of Marine Corps CPL Jose D. Aviles AKA My Father. I found out this past Friday July 9, 2010 that on June 8, 2009 My Father passed away in a Veteran Affairs Hospital in Bronx, New York. I haven't seen and/or heard from my Dad since 2001. What makes me feel worse than anything is that in April of 2007 I moved to New York and lived less than 30 miles away from the Hospital where he spent the last minutes of his life. I feel so bad, I feel terrible and now I wonder (think)"Did I do everything in my power to find him?", "Did I exhaust all means to find him?". Those questions are going to be with me forever and I just don't have an answer to them and probably never will have one. Thanks to my awesome Wife I was able to track him down to an address in the Bronx and when I thought that I would find him I got the phone call from the Hospital to answer my questions and later told that he was gone. When I heard that it felt as if the ground was pulled from under my feet, then and only then I realized that the last time I heard his voice telling me that he witnessed the September 11 attacks in New York City was the last time that I heard his voice, that the week he spent with me in late 2000 or early 2001 was the last time that I would see him and now I would give anything to see him again. He was alone when he passed away and was buried with Military honors and a Chaplain and I wasn't there to pay him my respects. He was hardly around when I was growing up but no matter what, he was MY FATHER, MY DAD and I wish I would've seen him again. Today when I saw his name engraved in the headstone I realized that it was true that he was gone (until then I was kind of in denial). No matter what happened through our lives when I was growing up, nothing matters as far as why you wasn't around, what matters to me is that you are gone and will never forgive myself for not finding you earlier, for not doing whatever it took to find you, but above all you were and will always be MY DAD. DAD I LOVE YOU and I MISS YOU.


V/R,


Jose A. Aviles
SSG, US Army

LOVE YOU ALWAYS




Jose Aviles

Sphere: Related Content