Hospice nurse Wanda Rodriguez hadn't seen her father since she was little -- but had a second chance to connect when he was placed in her hospice ward.
Wanda Rodriguez never had the chance to know her father. He and her mother had divorced when she was just a young child, and even though he didn’t move far—from the Bronx to Queens—he never came to visit his children.
Wanda often wondered about her father: what he looked like, where he worked, what he was doing. All she knew was his name: Victor Peraza.
After Wanda grew up, she became a hospice nurse at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, where she would help provide medicine and comfort to patients in their final days. A few weeks ago, she received a new patient with terminal cancer in her ward—and the name on his registration forms sent a jolt through her body. The dying man was named Victor Peraza.
“I got nervous, very anxious, and I said, ‘Oh my God that’s my father’s name ... what chance is there it’s my dad?’” Rodriguez told the New York Daily News.
When Rodriguez entered his room, she asked him if he had any children. He had two, he told her: Gina and Wanda.
Rodriguez couldn’t hold her tears back. She told him, “I’m Wanda, I’m your daughter.”
Peraza embraced her, apologizing for how poorly he’d treated her family. And she forgave him.
Upon reuniting with her dying father, Rodriguez’ bitterness towards him melted away. He could have just weeks left to live—and she wanted to make the most of the time she had with him.
In the weeks since, Rodriguez has brought her own children into the hospital to meet their grandfather, and they’ve created cards for him, bearing the words, “I love you.”
Despite his approaching death, Peraza is thrilled to have a second chance with his daughter. “It’s a miracle, it’s God, it’s fate, it’s hope,” he said.