My Cousin

Vincent Paul Rodriguez -- July 13, 1985 -- April 8, 2010

As some of you may already know, my family suffered a huge loss recently. My cousin, Vincent, lost his battle with leukemia exactly a month ago on April 8, 2010. He had been diagnosed last summer, received a cord-blood transplant that seemed to have defeated the cancer, but he remained in the hospital for over four months after receiving the transplant because he was so immunol-compromised that he kept catching infections. He was having trouble eating because he was constantly getting nauseous, and this further weakened him. We went to visit him on Easter Sunday, and he wasn't doing too well, but we just thought he was having a bad day.

A few days later, as I was preparing to head to school for a huge presentation, I received a tearful phone call from my aunt, telling me to please come to the hospital to come say goodbye to my cousin. Over the course of those last few days, his condition has worsened and his bodily systems were shutting down. I dropped everything, in tears, and made the necessary phone calls to Fernando to come home and to my teacher to apologize for not coming in that day to give my presentation. She was very understanding and let me go. Within just a few hours of coming to the hospital, seeing my cousin, and saying goodbye to him, he was gone. He was surrounded by his family when he passed--my aunt, my mom, his two brothers--Angel and Oscar, his sister-in-law Erika, me, and Fernando. It was incredibly painful to face the loss, and my heart broke for my aunt and his brothers. He was the cousin I was the closest to, and I hate the fact that his being gone means the "baby" of the family is gone.

Vincent was an amazing person--he faced much adversity in his life, including the premature death of his father. But he was always diligent about his education and he was less than a year away from graduating from UC Santa Cruz with his bachelor's degree in Astrophysics. As a person, he was friendly, even-tempered, and well-liked. He loved video games, computers, and animals. He was very close to his family. He had such a peaceful, calming presence and he really was a bright spot in my life. I loved him and I really miss him.

I'm doing okay in recovering from this loss, but I do think of him everyday, Sometimes it's good memories that make me smile, or something might trigger some sadness. I don't think I'll ever go a day without thinking about him anymore. I'm lucky, though, because my family is incredibly tight-knit, so we can rely on each other for support. I'm also lucky that my schoolwork has given me something else to focus on to keep my mind preoccupied. As part of my own healing, I wrote him a poem that I also read out loud at his funeral mass on April 20th. I'm posting it here so everyone will know how important he was to me and how highly I regarded him.

Fire and Fight
By Jessica Vasquez

-- For Vincent

Yours was the nature of light

Gentle, glowing
Constant
Your shy smile

Illuminated, radiating
A beacon
Your focused knowledge

Warm, enveloping
Peaceful
Your easygoing way

Yours was the nature of a warrior

You battled the bad guys
For us—
Your brothers

You did it without question
Knew the ins and outs
Of good and evil

Continuous, unyielding
Beginning and ending
As a soldier

The constellation Orion
Is both light and warrior—
Fire and fight

Every night those stars rise bright
That is their nature
That is your nature

Orion is ever poised to let fly his arrow
That is his nature
That is your nature

After writing this poem, I hope to get a tattoo in memory of him. I want the tattoo to depict a telescope pointing up to the sky with the constellation Orion in the distance. Underneath that, I want a banner with his name or maybe a line from the poem. As soon as I have some money saved up, I'm going to make the tattoo happen.

~LOVE~