I think I had to be about 10 when one of my brothers was asked if he was, ”A ‘Rios’?” He was walking out of a bank and the woman asked whose son he was and she named a few of my uncles. My brother told her that he was Ray’s son. I remember when he told my Parents about this because the woman told him that, “He walked like a ‘Rios.’”
The closest thing that I got to that question was when I was in high school and I took my Parents’car to the tire shop. I was in my school uniform and I had my softball sweatshirt on. It had my number and my last name on the back. One of the owners who was going to work on the car, called out to me as I turned around to walk away. “Are you a ‘Rios’? I turned back around and smiled. I nodded and I told him that I was Ray’s daughter. He told me that I was a lot better looking than my Dad and to tell him that he told me that! He was friends with my Dad and I laughed as I went to sit in the waiting room. I was only asked that because my last name was on my the back of my sweatshirt but I liked hearing that.
Well, today, there was a plumbing issue in my house. Retirement or not, my Mom texted my brother, Jimmy, to fix it. He walked into my house and we gave each other, “Air hugs’ and he took a look in my bathroom. He went out to his van to get the auger and he had already taken his jacket off. So I looked up that saw the back of him walk toward my bathroom. I told him that I have not seen, “The Rios Walk” in a long time! All of my brothers walk that way and that comes from my Dad. He laughed as I told him that, “Mom doesn’t walk like that!” You know, the ONLY person I have seen for a year!
He fixed the problem so I would be able to use the bathroom and as he left, he had his jacket in his hand and seeing him walk out of my house with a shirt like my Dad and his longer Covid hair on the back of his neck made me think of my Dad with extreme fondness.