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153 “She so good,” Dad said of Tía Juanita. Nearly a year to the day after our surprise visit to Spain, Dad’s sister died of heart complications in the Lekeitio nursing home. “How do you feel?” I asked him. “I okay. Little sad, but I say good-bye last year.” I didn’t say anything. “Thank you,” he then said to me, a rare moment. “You’re very welcome, Dad.” I thought of Sister Mary Kathleen and Sister Dennis and wondered now what they might have thought about my original deception. But it no longer mattered to me. I had made peace with it. Three months after Tía Juanita, Chapo died at age eighty of a heart attack. His son found him lying on the couch, fast asleep. The family asked me to write the obituary for the local paper, which I sadly did, penning each heavy word and thinking of a hundred others to describe this small man who had been such an integral part of my childhood and memory. Chapo came from Gizaburuaga, his birthplace, in 1954 and herded sheep for several ranching outfits in the valleys and foothills of Elko County. He ate from cans or fished in streams, and he slept by campfires, enduring scorching summers and the coldest of winters, but he prided himself on not losing a herd and working from sunup to sundown without complaint or regret about leaving Spain and coming to America. A few days before he died, he had served as head chef at the Elko Basque Festival, his round belly wrapped in a white apron emblazoned with the very important title “Chef Chapo.” Friends saw him wearing a straw hat and barking orders to turn the steaks, toss the salad, stir the beans, and find the plates for over a thousand people in attendance. All were served—orderly, efficiently. Afterwards 154 Chapo played mus up to the last week of his life. No one ever imagined that a card game could produce an aerobic workout, but Chapo took his mus playing seriously and managed to raise his blood pressure during each match. Neither cooking nor playing mus offered him the immense joys of fishing. He spent as much time casting a line at South Fork or Dorsey Reservoir in Elko County, or huddling near a beaver dam in Lamoille Canyon, as he did behind a grill or seated at a card table. “His favorite fishing spot,” said Dad, “was the one with the most fish.” Naturally, he cooked and ate everything he caught, or wrapped the fish and gave them to friends for a healthy lunch. Sometimes he even went over and cooked the fish for them. “Do you miss Chapo?” I asked Dad. “No, I don’t—yes, I do,” he said. “Make up your mind. Which is it?” “Dey all dying, dat’s all. Every last one of dem.” “It’ll be okay, Dad.” “You sure?” he asked. “I’m sure, Dad,” and I knew the Basques as a people would carry on. ...

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