Alberto Ibarguen and Diego Ibarguen

[00:06] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: I'm Alberto E. Barguin. I'm 79 years old. Today's date is October 17, 2023. And we're sitting here outside of the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York. The name of my interview partner is Diego Ibarguin, who is my son, my wonderful son.

[00:33] DIEGO IBARGUEN: My name is Diego Ibarguin. I'm 48 years old. Today's date is October 17, 2023. We are sitting in an airstream booth outside of the Brooklyn museum. The name of my interview partner is Alberto Ibarguin, and he is my father.

[00:52] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: So. Well, I wanted to talk some about Susana, about your mother, my wife. And I was trying, thinking, looking at all the thinking of all the questions we could talk, all the ways we could begin talking about her. And it occurred to me, I don't think I know. What is your earliest memory of her?

[01:18] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I think it's when we lived in Glastonbury. I was afraid it would be hard to talk about.

[01:31] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: I know. I think that's why we didn't do it back when we first thought about it.

[01:38] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Well, I remember that we had a house that was not particularly big, not as big as some of the other places we lived later. And we had a yard that was.

[01:52] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Bigger than anything we ever had again.

[01:55] DIEGO IBARGUEN: That's right. I remember there was a little sandbox in the. In the yard. Sorry. And I didn't mention it earlier, but you can pause at any moment.

[02:13] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Please let me know. Okay? All right.

[02:16] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Sorry. I remember there was a sandbox in the yard, and I actually remember there was some kind of grass that was sharp. And I was playing with it and cut my finger on it. And I remember her taking care of the cut. It was probably three.

[02:35] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: I think you were probably around that. I think you were. I'm sure you were around that age. I also remember that we had. We had. We had about a quarter of a quarter acre garden, which was easily five times more than I could tend. And you and I would go there, and I mainly remember you squeezing your little toes in the mud. That seemed to be a particularly fun thing to do. And in that same yard, I remember the first time I saw you walk, which was after Susanna told me she had already seen you walk. I wondered if you remembered that house.

[03:24] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I do. I remember it in part because it seemed so big compared to everything else, because I guess I was so small. I remember there were cornfields nearby. There was a tobacco field nearby. The neighbors lived right next door. The neighbors lived in a trailer.

[03:40] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Right.

[03:41] DIEGO IBARGUEN: It felt very different from the neighborhood we moved to right after that in Hartford, where there were houses, big houses, one right after the other. And knew all the kids in the neighborhood. The school was across the street. We all hung out together in the street afterward. Because you and mom were at work. As were all the parents on the street.

[04:07] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Did you think of yourself as a latchkey child? I remember a teacher telling Susanna one time that you were a latchkey child. And she took great offense.

[04:17] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I remember she took great offense for the rest of her life. At Miss Brown's comment. Yeah, I did feel that way. I had a key. I got myself to school. I got myself home. But I also felt independent. I thought that was part of why it worked.

[04:37] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Yeah.

[04:38] DIEGO IBARGUEN: And all the kids in the neighborhood were that way. It's the way we all hung out together.

[04:43] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Do you remember Weldon's nursery? Do you remember that far back?

[04:47] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Not really. I remember the stories about it more than it.

[04:52] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Yeah. I think my main association with it is. Is the urgency of having to pick you up at a certain time. When both Susanna and I worked in town. And we had to get back out to. Mainly she did, but to get back out to Glastonbury.

[05:12] DIEGO IBARGUEN: You know, Laura and I have felt that with our kids. With them being in different places and all having different activities. And trying to rush back and forth. I know that sue would talk about that sometimes when she'd be with us. How busy it was getting from one place to another. But you guys had to do it, too.

[05:32] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Yeah, well, and the folks at the nursery school. It was really mainly at the nursery school that I remember. Because later, when you were in grammar school. It wasn't such a big deal. Because it was right across the street. Although I suppose junior high school then was further away. What did you think of your parents both working both out, both away as opposed to at home?

[06:09] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I didn't think anything unusual about it. It was the way our neighborhood worked. Everybody's parents worked. It felt very natural. And maybe the one thing that was a little unusual. Was that sue was taking those classes at Trinity for a couple of years.

[06:27] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: She was. Do you remember when she graduated?

[06:31] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I do.

[06:32] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Yeah. She was very proud of that. It took a while. She had started in chemistry in Buenos Aires. And then switched to English. And had to start all over again.

[06:46] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Economics. When she did that, I think it was economics.

[06:48] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Was it economics?

[06:49] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Yeah, I went to those classes.

[06:51] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: No, not in Buenos Aires.

[06:52] DIEGO IBARGUEN: No, the ones in Connecticut.

[06:55] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Yeah, but I mean, in Argentina, when she switched from chemistry to english. She lost the credits. And then she did some when we lived, when she and I lived in Bogota, she took some courses at the University of Los Andes, and then she took some courses at Penn when I was studying in law school there. So she had lots of different courses over time, and she didn't actually get credit for them until Trinity college gave her credit for it.

[07:27] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Right. And I remember she would take me to the. She would work all day and then pick me up, and I'd go to her classes or evening classes. I think they were all economics, and sit in the back of the class while she had the lectures. I remember those. I remember those trips. I remember all her classmates. I remember there were a number of. There were a number of people who were going back to get a degree later in life and her group of friends.

[07:54] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Right. She was in that. It was Ada, I think, I want to say Ada Comstock or something like that. It was a program that Trinity had for women, mainly women, I think, who had not graduated for whatever reasons.

[08:13] DIEGO IBARGUEN: That was a big day. I also remember the day of her naturalization.

[08:17] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Yeah. Was that also a trinity? I seem to recall it was right around the same time.

[08:23] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I think that was later. That was in New York. I was in high school. I remember I got to take the day off of school, but we went down to school.

[08:32] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Oh, did you really?

[08:33] DIEGO IBARGUEN: We went downtown and went through the ceremony, and I remember thinking how long she waited, that she really didn't want to do it. She felt very strongly about where she was from. That was her place. That was her identity. But she'd lived here for so long. And I think it come to feel that this was really her place. Yeah, it was a nice moment.

[09:06] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: I know that to be true. When we were first married, I was program director for the Peace Corps in Columbia, and I was. And so I was a foreign service. It was called the Foreign Service Reserve officer. And as a member of the foreign service, I was my wife, my spouse. The spouse of any foreign service officer had to be a us citizen. And she said, wait, I married you. I didn't marry your country, and I have nothing against mine. So she was always of two minds about that and delayed it for, I think about, it's got to be at least 15 years.

[09:55] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I think more than that, maybe more. And even when she had it, when she would go to Argentina, when we would go together to visit her family, she would always take the two passports and sort of wait to see what the border guards would do if they would let her travel on a us passport or not. They'd often require the argentine one but.

[10:19] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: At that time, I think she hadn't. Every time she went back, she had to go through the process of renewing it in person, as I recall. And it was always a big bureaucratic mess to keep it up. But as much as she delayed, she certainly was an ardent american, an ardent us citizen.

[10:49] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I think that's right. I think she really. Some people can be lucky, I think, to feel a real connection to the place where they're from, but also the place where they are.

[10:59] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Yeah. Did you two ever get to visit where she was from? And if so, could you explain and describe it? Sure.

[11:09] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Well, I know when you first went was certainly a long time before I did.

[11:13] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: I first went in 1962 on a student exchange. I had been president of my high school, and one of my campaign promises was to establish a student exchange program with someplace. And it's a long story, but we ended up establishing one with a high school in Buenos Aires. And so I got to go, and that's when I met Susanna. My first memory of her, actually, is literally getting on a bus. When we were going on a school trip organized by her school, the Colegio ward, we were going on a school trip to Mendoza. So it was across the country. And I got on the bus. I think that was the trip. I got on the bus, and I heard her voice, and I thought, wow, what a great voice. And I looked to see whose voice it was, and she looked so young. And I, of course, was already had just graduated from high school, and I thought I was a mature person. And I thought, oh, too bad she's too young for me. And it wasn't until later on that same trip that we began actually to talk. But I went there, and then I went again. We saw each other. That was in the summer of 62. We saw each other in 65 when she came through New York with her parents. And then when I was living in the Amazon, in Venezuela, she came up. She was going to Puerto Rico, and she stopped by for a couple of weeks. And then in 68, I was. I showed up in Buenos Aires, and we got engaged. And in 69, we were married in Buenos Aires. And so then your first visit would have been, whatever, five years later, I think, or something like that.

[13:25] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Yeah, I think before I could remember, before we get to your visit, I'm.

[13:29] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Curious what it was about her voice. Was she singing or just talking? No, she was talking to somebody. I just thought it was the most beautiful voice. It was a wonderful, wonderful, natural voice. It was a warm sound and was just lovely.

[13:47] DIEGO IBARGUEN: She had this sort of voice that really did let you know she was there even later. I could always tell when she'd walked in the room. You could hear her across a party. Her laugh was very distinctive, mister.

[14:02] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: And frequently.

[14:05] DIEGO IBARGUEN: So what made you decide that you wanted to get married?

[14:09] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: I was trying to organize a trip with my friend Howie Goldman, who lived in the mountains. I lived in the jungle and he lived in Merida, I think, as I recall.

[14:19] DIEGO IBARGUEN: That was in the Peace Corps.

[14:21] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: In the Peace Corps. And I was sitting in my little. On my hammock with a table and a typewriter. The letters would take two weeks to get to him, two weeks to get back to me. This was never going to happen. But I did want to go see Colombia, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. And I thought, well, if you want to do that, but you don't want to travel by yourself, then you must be ready to get married. And I know it's not everybody's immediate conclusion, but it was mine. And I thought since the time we met in high school, that when I was ready to get married, that's the person that I would marry. And so I literally walked. I got up, walked across town, borrowed. Went to see the two anthropologists from Brandeis, and I said, mike, joanna, I need to borrow dollar 400. Mike said, do you need dollars or bolivares? He didn't even ask me what it was for. And then there was a cooling off, 24 hours cooling off period because the DC three that came three times a week did not come the next day. But I thought about it and I thought, yeah, I think it's time. And I was 24, I guess. 23. 24, yeah, I must have been 24. And so I got the plane to Caracas, bought a ring, sent her a telegram saying, I'm showing up tomorrow. And she met me at the airport. And a week later, I asked her to marry me. She said yes. And then I had to talk to a man who was to become huge in my life and was maybe even bigger in your life. Your grandfather, my future father in law. And I was determined that I was not going to ask for her as if she were chattel, as if she were a thing. We were modern people. This was 1969. And I said, so I finally went to see him at his office. Had a double scotch, neat, outside the office, because he was a formidable person and I needed some strengthening. And so we're in there, chat, chat, chat. And then I say, well, Susanna and I have determined to marry a. I think I said determined, but it was in Spanish. It was. And. Y preferiramos acerlo consu menicion. We would prefer to do it with your blessing. And he stopped smiling and had his Lopez jowls look serious look. And said, well, I take it from your statement, which I understand is not a question, that you've decided to enter into this folly, no matter what I say, but as the putative father in law, I think I have the right to some questions and ask me anything you want. And he said, well, do you have any money? And I said, no. He said, I was afraid of that. And he said, well, this peace corps. No. He said, first, do you intend to take Susana, what? Grown up in Buenos Aires, do you intend to take Susanna Lopez to the Amazon? I said, no, no, no. I'm going to go to law school. And he said, well, in this peace corps, is this a career? I said, no, I'm going to be a lawyer and whatnot. And then finally he said, well, as long as you're in, be part of the family. And he, you remember he taught at the university when he wasn't. I mean, he was a CPA and had a big CPA firm, but he also taught there. And he had these huge tomes that he had to take home for reviewing something and said, as long as you're going to be part of the family, here, you carry these back.

[18:58] DIEGO IBARGUEN: He was a formidable person and a big part of my life and a big part of Susana's, too.

[19:02] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Yeah. Do you remember he would go anywhere in the world and on the way home, he would come see you and Susanna. I was clearly third in line. And he would never stay at a hotel room. He would stay in your room and read you the. And tell you stories from Martin Fierro, the great argentine cowboy legende.

[19:28] DIEGO IBARGUEN: He was a very good storyteller.

[19:29] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Yeah.

[19:30] DIEGO IBARGUEN: And he was fun to be with.

[19:32] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: He had, he had. When the first time you went, you were a baby. And then the next time, I think you went with Susanna. And I think. I think it was probably the third time when you went by yourself.

[19:51] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I think I was nine. I remember feeling pretty grown up, going to, already knowing the route, changing planes a couple of times and knowing how to get around the airports. And I think the thing I remember most about that was at nine, going into the duty free at some point to buy a bottle of, I don't know what kind of alcohol for Lelo and Tato, for my grandfather and uncle. It was fun. And in retrospect, I think I remember how much that changed my view of what it was like to travel, what it was like to be responsible for yourself. Not an easy thing to do, I suppose, at that age, but it ended up not being so hard.

[20:37] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: I remember you were ticked off that the airline stewardesses wouldn't let you wander off in Rio airport.

[20:46] DIEGO IBARGUEN: That was the second time. I already knew the airport pretty well by that point. The other thing, it's funny thinking about Susanna's naturalization now, when one of those trips, I was there around July 9, the Argentina Independence Day, and we went to an event, and it was all well and good, and I was very happy to celebrate Argentina with everyone there. But Lillo and my grandfather had been chuckling the whole time, because I think I had just arrived that day, and he had asked me to give him things to put in the safe. And I think I gave him. I think I gave him some of the cash that I was carrying and maybe my return ticket. And he said, what about your passport? And I said, I'm going to keep my passport for myself. He was telling everybody who would listen that I would not give up my american passport because I was afraid I might have to stay there forever.

[21:41] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: You didn't give it up either. I remember when you went to Iguazu, he told it a similar story, that you had your own. You had your own passport. You were going to make your own way.

[21:54] DIEGO IBARGUEN: He was a good travel companion. He would come to visit all the time, which was really fun. And I got to know him in a way that I unfortunately didn't know your father, because I just didn't see him as much. But with Lelo, I remember he would come and he would spend weeks at a time. It was. I think his thought was, it was too far to go to not stay for a while. So he would stay for three weeks or a month, and he would come to my school. He would go to games. He would do everything with us. And then when I'd go down there to Argentina, he always had a trip planned, whether it was going to. Going to Brazil or going to Chile. He always had something in mind. And he would show me a lot of Argentina, a lot of things that I wouldn't have otherwise seen, and a.

[22:39] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Lot of history and the culture of the place. Do you remember that he, at some point, was offered a position in the United States with one of the big eight? What was then called the big eight. Accounting firms with two Schroffs, Bailey and Smart was the name of, the full name of it. And he thought about it and then decided he wouldn't. And he would never buy real estate. He had investments in other places other than Argentina. But he would never buy real estate except in Argentina. I tried to get him to buy a townhouse in Washington one time, and he just would have none of it. I said, but this is a great. In Georgetown. This is a great investment. This is not going nowhere but up. He wouldn't buy real estate outside of Argentina.

[23:37] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I don't remember that. But I do remember how much he cared about Argentina and its history and its future and how hard it was, I think, for him to have the sort of open mind that he did at a time, especially when sue was little, where the government didn't really permit that he was.

[24:01] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: He was very anti peron and was reasonably active in that.

[24:12] DIEGO IBARGUEN: But I also remember when I'd go back there largely on my own as I got older and started to understand politics there better. One of my favorite things to do was sit around that kitchen table where the same kitchen table where my mother and her brothers grew up, eating every meal together and listen to the debates. There were lots of different debates about just about everything, whether politics, soccer, the quality of the food, the quality of the wine.

[24:46] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: I think, actually he modeled in many ways. And it's interesting that we're doing this with Storycorps, this conversation, because he modeled and lived, as you said, a life. He had a mind that was open to other people's ideas. But that did not mean in any way that he'd necessarily agree. And I think some of the absolute best arguments I think I ever had about politics and about the current events of the day were when I was in law school and Susanna and I lived in Philadelphia, and we would have knock down, drag out arguments at the dinner table, which is that brown round table, you remember. And it was passionate, but it was always ultimately respectful. It was always ultimately. Although he did tell me one time that at my age, he said he believed in the old adage that if you're not at least leftist when you're young, you have no heart. But he said, but by the time you get to be your age, I was about 30. At that point, if you haven't figured out that's not the way the world worked, you're just an idiot.

[26:22] DIEGO IBARGUEN: That's a word he liked to use a lot and sounds just like something he would say. Well, I think that kind of discussion, certainly just hearing it all the time with them in Argentina, but also at our home growing up, I think, framed a lot of how I view the importance of challenging your own views, your own ideas. Nothing wrong with believing strongly in things, but always understanding that there's another way of looking at it.

[26:56] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: You talked on another occasion about. Somebody asked you if at home. We had talked a lot about law since this was on occasion when we were with a group of. Of lawyers, and you said not so much law as much as free speech, free expression and debate about lots of other things. I wonder, how do you think, Susanna, who had, I think, stronger opinions than almost anybody about almost anything, how do you think, how do you remember her in those discussions?

[27:40] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I remember her participating, but not nearly as directly as you. I think she listened. She'd have things to say later, but in the moment, I think she was mainly looking for something that just sounded too silly to let stand. I think a lot of the nuance around some of the smaller things was less interesting to her as a point to challenge than. Than the things that were at the extremes. I do remember her as being probably the most opinionated person I've ever known about, really, about everything. And I think it was certainly something that I would have been aware of younger, but I think as I got older, it could sometimes get a little annoying how she could not withhold those opinions in circumstances where I thought maybe she ought to.

[28:35] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: She grew to have no governor on her tongue, just about.

[28:40] DIEGO IBARGUEN: But that was one of the things that was so nice about her. It's like you knew what you were getting. She didn't hide stuff. I think I remember that very well about being her son. I knew where I stood.

[28:59] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: What did you think when. When we moved to Miami, as she got more and more involved in community things, which is something that she hadn't done so much in either Hartford or. Well, she certainly hadn't done it that much in Buenos Aires or when we lived in Columbia, Hartford, New York. And in Miami, she was on the county arts council, and she was one of the original women who started the funding arts network, and she was president of the, then might call Miami Art museum, now the Pettis art museum. Did that surprise you when she became sort of a civic person, public person?

[29:57] DIEGO IBARGUEN: It did.

[29:58] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Sorry, before you answer that, just. We have ten minutes left, and I was curious, before you answer that, you were just saying about how your mother was, I guess, to the point and opinionated, and you said you always knew where you stood as her son. But then I didn't know if I caught that in terms of. I was just curious in terms of where you and her stood or her love for you or. I don't know. There was a few words I didn't catch.

[30:29] DIEGO IBARGUEN: If you'd like to go back or answer that. Yeah. I think her willingness to tell you what was on her mind meant that it was always very clear where you stood with her. And I, as her son, felt like I knew exactly where I stood. I knew if she didn't like something I wanted to do or I was thinking about doing. I remember one time at the end of college, really unsure what I wanted to do. I decided I didn't want to go into the peace Corps. I really didn't want to go get a job somewhere. I wanted to just kind of have things happen. I told her, I called her from the payphone, which I guess doesn't exist anymore, and told her that I was thinking I might join the marines. And, man, she did not stop. She. I don't think I ever. I don't remember her ever being so upset at an idea, and I don't think I really meant it, but it was her. I knew she would tell you what she thought, and.

[31:38] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: And she adored you. I don't think there's ever. There was ever a moment when she didn't.

[31:44] DIEGO IBARGUEN: And then when I had the half cocked idea to go off and travel for a year. I don't remember her ever saying that was a bad idea, and either one of you did. You always supported me on that, and it helped. It was a great way for me to figure out what I wanted to do.

[32:04] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: The strength of character was, I think, never more clear than when she developed ALS, when she had an infection. Before that, remember Doctor Salum, her infectious disease doctor, said he just couldn't figure out what might be the underlying cause, and he later thought maybe that ALS was already somehow beginning to affect the body. But in any event, when she was diagnosed with that, she was as clear about it as could be. And as she knew so much, shed always been interested in medicine and chemistry and was very clear about where this inevitably was going to lead. And I think it has been one of the great lessons of my life to watch her. The strength with which she managed her almost immediate paralysis, because three months after the diagnosis, she was fully, fully paralyzed in every limb and had lost her ability to speak.

[33:26] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I wish it weren't so hard to talk about. Even after a couple of years, it feels like it just happened. When she. When we were together, when she got that diagnosis, that sort of. I guess it wasn't even the first time, the first doctor, but the. The one that she believed.

[33:47] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Yeah.

[33:48] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Who said it was ALS?

[33:50] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Doctor Schneider.

[33:51] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I remember we all walked out of there in a days, but she even there, she knew what she wanted. She didn't want to live like that.

[34:04] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: No, she wanted to live, but she didn't want to be kept alive. And I actually counted 16 different times when four different doctors, over time, would insist to her that she had to take a feeding tube. And she said, ken, is there a cure? And they would say, no. And then she said, this is going.

[34:23] DIEGO IBARGUEN: To keep me alive.

[34:24] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: You're just going to keep me alive.

[34:27] DIEGO IBARGUEN: And she would say the same thing about going to see the doctor at that point, too. I mean, what is he going to do for me, right? But I think.

[34:37] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Do you know that having the FaceTime visits actually was a real boon, because those visits were really valuable to me as the caregiver. Not that they were particularly valuable for her because she had a disease that was incurable, but doing it on FaceTime meant that she didn't have to go through the trouble of having us get her into a car and do all of the difficult things that she found so hard to take.

[35:18] DIEGO IBARGUEN: And so much of her, so much of the worst part of that illness was during the pandemic and when we couldn't be with you both down in Miami. But I think FaceTime there was also great, because it gave us this way to see each other every day.

[35:35] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: We did. And we actually, when you and Laura had the kids clear the table and call Abuela every night, that was by far the most important part of her day. And actually, I often thought that at an awful price. But I think the relationship that I have with your three children, with my three grandchildren, really comes from having been the person who did all of the talking back and forth with. With everybody. And I know that her eyes just brightened when the call would come in and she would see each of the three kids. And the tragedy of that disease, I think, or the great difficulty of it, is that the fact that your mind never doesn't go. And so she was clearly aware of what was happening. She was the one who called the shots in terms of what her care would be and her. The situation we were living. But she was able, with that Toby Dynavox machine that read her gaze, she could actually spell out words and sentences. And do you remember she wrote letters to the grandkids about growing up in Argentina, which then the kids read out loud when we were finally able to see each other. And you knew that her sharpness had not ended when there was that time that she and I were sitting at the table and I was reading something, and she was looking at the screen writing something. And one of the nurses that one of the caregivers that she didn't think was all that good was helping to train somebody else who was not going to make it, just also not that good. And I looked up just as she was shifting her gaze to the block that said, you remember, the upper right hand corner said, speak. And she had just written, the blind leading the blind. And I said, no, you can't say that.

[38:04] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I mean, it's been two years since she died. But I think that I said before that her. The consistency, the willingness to always share her opinions about things is what I miss most about her not being around. Right up until she died, she was like that. What do you miss about her?

[38:31] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: I think I miss the little things. I think I miss the. Something ridiculous happens, something wonderful happens, something unusual happens in my instinct is even now, is still, I have to tell Susana about this. After 53 years. It would be amazing if it weren't that way, I guess, but it's the. It feels trite, but it is. But the lifetime together is built on those private moments that, by themselves, aren't necessarily hugely important, but it's the cumulative impact of a shared experience over time, over years, over decades. And so when I'd see a store that had closed, that I knew that she had gone to, and the first thought I'd have is, I've got to tell Susanna. And then I remember one time I started to take a photograph of it, to sort of text a photo to her. And that's. Those are the moments when it just still feels overwhelming that she's not there to receive, she's not there to share the small moments, but also the big moments. The happiest day, I think, of each of both of our lives was the day you were born. And nobody worked harder than she did to do that. You remember that you were called Max for the nine months of pregnancy. And after the three shifts of nurses that she went through, I said, okay, okay, I give up. What do you want to call him? And she said, Diego or Gonzalo, I think, or Rodrigo, maybe. And I said, okay, let's go for Diego I think that'll be easier to say since we lived in New England.

[40:47] DIEGO IBARGUEN: It's a strange choice, but it's worked for me.

[40:55] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: What brought that conversation to change his name? In that day, it was 16 hours of hard labor, and I thought, she deserves to call this kid whatever she wants to call him. She worked for it at one point. This was early on in natural childbirth. It was not that popular and when. The night we got there at night, and then the night nurses wanted me out of the way, and she looked at me and looked at them and said in Spanish, if you go, I'm going with you. I'm not staying here. So she managed to go through that crew of nurses the next shift, and then dear was finally born in the third shift. So anyhow, we will remember her forever.

[41:58] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Yeah.

[42:02] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: There'S lots more we could say. I'm not sure, given the time where we really.

[42:09] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I feel like I have such a hard time talking about her.

[42:14] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Yeah, I find it. I find it. I think I have two minds on that. I sometimes feel like by making myself talk about her and talk about how she reacted to all those years of. The five years of illness, the two with the MRSA and the operations that. That required the last two years with ALS. I find it's good. It sort of helps me kind of cope with the fact of her loss. But it feels. But it always feels. It always feels. Not analytical, but it always feels like if I talk about it, I'm trying to put a distance. I'm trying to. It's still too painful to feel. And so I try to tell the story in a sort of reportorial, journalistic sort of way.

[43:31] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Right. And I find I get too caught up in emotion when I try to talk about her that way. But I do find that with her, with Lido, with other family that have passed, telling stories is really the best way to keep them alive.

[43:52] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Yeah, I think it's probably a good place to stop. Sounds good. We can record more if you guys like, or we can end there. I was going to ask if you.

[44:11] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Guys wanted to physically describe her, what.

[44:15] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: She looked like, her presence. Oh, that's interesting. Maybe. What's something you wish everyone knew about.

[44:26] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Her, maybe you haven't discussed yet. People have never gotten the chance to meet her.

[44:32] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: So we can talk about one or both or neither of those things, or.

[44:36] DIEGO IBARGUEN: We can just end there if you'd like. Totally up to you guys.

[44:39] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: I think that's an interesting question. How would you describe her?

[44:44] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I think the. It's hard to describe her beyond her eyes. I just really remember her eyes. There were always. They were dark and they really focused in. And I remember liking the way she looked at me.

[45:03] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Yeah, that's wonderful. She was. She was always not made up. She didn't actually use very much make up at all, but she was always sort of combed and dressed.

[45:32] DIEGO IBARGUEN: She didn't do casual very well.

[45:34] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: No, she did. Not at all. Not at all. And in fact, the other day when they gave in Miami, they gave me that sand. It's an award called sand in my shoes from still, he's saying that if you get sand in your shoes, you can't get it out, and that means that you're never leaving Miami after 30 years of living there. And I keep thinking how she would have reacted to sand in my shoes. No, that's why I don't go to the beach.

[46:05] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Exactly. That's why she wouldn't go to the beach.

[46:06] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: I'll go to the pool. I'm not going to the beach. But she was always really, really simply, but very, very elegantly dressed. And when she died, I knew the stuff was there. I couldn't believe the number of things that she had taken care of that she hadn't used in years and years. And just everything, shoes and everything was done. I think the thing, though, that she was so friendly, outwardly friendly, but she never wanted company at home. You remember that. She just. Even with her brothers. After a few days, she began wondering when you were going home, but if anyone. One time we had a big, big dinner at our house. We invited all the board and the senior staff of the foundation to come to our apartment for cocktails and dinner. And we walked from the bedroom, from our bedroom, past the other bedrooms, past the family room, the dining room. And all the while she was saying, why are you doing this? Why are you putting me through this? You know that I don't want anybody in the house. It just is no fun for me. I don't know why you do it. What is it? What is it? And we get a past and into the foyer. Opens the door. I open the door, I said, oh, hello. And she's all of a sudden greeting everybody and making everybody feel welcome. They just couldn't figure out Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde when it came to having anybody actually stay over.

[48:19] DIEGO IBARGUEN: She liked her space. She liked things the way she had them.

[48:23] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: But I think her strength is something that even I having when I couldn't. The mental strength with which she dealt with ALS, I think, is. Went even beyond even what I would have expected after, at that point, what, 50, 50, 51 years. The way in which she was able to have control of her own self, her control of her own mind, control of who she was. And I think in all the time of the paralysis, I think there were just three times that I remember that she had. She couldn't make a sound, so she didn't yell, but she tried to make some kind of some kind of scream that just never came out. The strength that she had all the way. The rest was great. And the smile. The eye. You mentioned the eyes. When we would. It was during COVID And toward the end of the evening, we'd watch some stupid turkish soap opera or something like that that we'd find on Netflix. It would get to be around 10:00. And I would say, well, I'm really tired. Let's get ready to go. And she would start with her eyes. Sort of a gleam in her eye, wanting to stay and watch one more episode of the thing. And she was interesting. She was able to smile, though every other part of her body was gone. She was still able to smile even on the night that she died.

[50:21] DIEGO IBARGUEN: I think one last thought about her in that time was that for so many years, I think all she really wanted was just to be with you. Not that way, not trapped in her body like that. But I think your being there with her throughout all that probably made her happy.

[50:54] ALBERTO IBARGUEN: Well, I hope she certainly made me happy. One of the things that I thought after was really remarkable in that avalanche of letters that we got that you and I both got. Where the number of times that people would say that when she had a sense about when somebody felt nervous, when somebody felt unable to do something, particularly something in public or something like that. And I just. I was really surprised at the number of times people would write and say, you know, I remember one time I had to make this presentation, or I was going to take on this new responsibility. And she said, or these were adults as well as young people coming, writing, saying she had a sense of my own insecurity. And came over and said, one lady that joined the board of the museum, she had been a huge patron. She said she was nervous. And the first day she walked in, Susanna went right over and said, oh, come over and come here. Sit with me. But she just had a real ability to make people feel okay, make people feel comfortable, make people feel safe. Anyhow, I think we're just going to collect 10 seconds of quiet noise, and.

[52:41] DIEGO IBARGUEN: Then I'll pause it.