Granados Column: Dedicated to a father who was almost lost

On this Father’s Day, I dedicate my column to my dad, Juan Granados.
* * *

My bedroom door exploded open and the lights flared on suddenly. My mom came in with our dogs, Gizmo and Casper — Shih Tzus — who were barking
incessantly.

“Keep the dogs in here. I have to let the firemen in,” she said. “And change your clothes.”

Groggy from a rudely interrupted sleep, I staggered out of bed. My brain wasn’t yet working; it was still in that state between waking and dreaming. My dogs
managed to hasten my reentry into the real world with their little-dog barks.

After changing, I shut the dogs in my room and went to see what was going on. As I passed the stairs to the front door, it opened and a fireman’s head popped in. I
can’t remember what he said. Probably hello.

I’m not sure if I said anything to him, but I saw into my parent’s bedroom at the end of the hall. My dad was there, sitting on the bed, and my mom was standing
next to him. He was holding onto his head, clearly in pain.

The details elude me, but the firemen came up to check on my dad, and before long, paramedics took him away in an ambulance.

My mother and I followed behind in our car. At the hospital, doctors and nurses rushed my dad on a gurney from the emergency entrance, up the elevator and into
a room. He was unconscious.

At some point, a doctor came to tell me about my dad. I couldn’t understand much of what he was saying, and I can’t remember it any better now. But one thing
was clear. There was something seriously wrong with my dad. And there was a good chance he might die.

I learned later that he had been complaining of a severe headache. The headache grew worse and worse, and eventually, my mom called 911.

It was a brain aneurysm. They didn’t know if he would survive. They didn’t know if he would have brain damage. They didn’t know.

But as the days passed, the situation became clearer, my dad got better, his brain remained intact.

Eventually he was discharged with no lasting physical impact.

At the time that all this happened, I was a self-absorbed sixth-grade boy. I didn’t register the importance of what was happening, nor did I truly understand the
possible outcomes. I didn’t realize how closely death had passed.

It is only in my adult life that I have come to grasp what happened all those years ago. I almost lost my father at a young age.

How different would my life have been without my dad? How different would I be?

During the awkward years of my adolescence, my dad and I naturally had our differences and our arguments, but I have come to recognize the extraordinary love
directed toward me from the man, and I have come to understand all of the positive parts of myself for which I have him to thank.

He left Spain as a young man to come to America because he realized his dreams could not be fulfilled in his home country. He left his entire family, and though
he has visited, as have they, I’m sure he left a part of himself behind when he crossed the Atlantic for good.

If not for that decision, I wouldn’t be alive. And if not for the fact that my dad survived his aneurysm, I wouldn’t be home celebrating Father’s Day with him as you
read these words.

When I was very young, I remember my dad asking me if I wanted to join him on a trip to the grocery store. I was playing in the backyard. I said no.

But as he drove away, I changed my mind. Fear sparked somewhere inside of me and I became convinced that if I didn’t go with him, something bad was going to
happen. But it was too late. I cried inconsolably, as little children sometimes do. Fortunately, I was wrong. Nothing bad happened.

But years later, the night my dad got the headache and the firemen came, something bad did happen, and I almost lost him. At that time I took it for granted that I
would always have a dad. But since then, that assumption has changed. I won’t have him forever, so I must pay attention and cherish him while I can.

And so, on this Father’s Day, for those of you who still have a father, relish the moments you have to spend with him. We are here for a blink of an eternal eye, and
then we are gone from this earth, forever. All we have is now.

Alex Granados is the editorial page editor and reader representative for the News & Messenger. Contact him at 703-878-8069 or .