John Rivas

JUAN (JOHN) RIVAS

November 18, 2021

IN HIS OWN WORDS:

My darling Diane, you are an angel and a sweetheart. When you came into my life in 2009, my life became complete. As my wife, you have been a wonderful, considerate, and a terrific, partner and friend. I hate to leave your kindness, consideration, compassion, caring and love. I have appreciated all the small things that you did for me during my time of need to make my life better. I cannot thank you enough for your devotion and the solace that you provided to me in my deteriorating years. I have asked you to do so many favors and errands to run for me daily and not once did you complain. I am so fortunate that someone as classy as you played a significant and an enormous part in my life. My family has loved you as well. I am sorry that I cannot be with you anymore. I am taking with me all the warm memories of our tender moments together, the love and laughter that made every day a happy day. I cannot thank you enough for your concern and the care that you gave me in my waning moments as I got near to the culmination of my life. During our time together I treasured every one of our wonderful trips to London (Wimbledon), Paris (Roland Garros), Barcelona (Familia Sagrada), Dublin, Rome, Puerto Rico and Canada. The many trips to Las Vegas, Tahoe, Seattle, San Francisco and New York were all special and memorable occasions as well. All these experiences were made wonderful because they were devoid of any drama. I have really enjoyed every one of our grueling hikes at Big Bend, the Rocky Mountains and many hours on the tennis court. Having been married to you has been more than wonderful. It has been a blessing and I love you. Also, thank you for bringing Valentino and Napoleon into my life. They were wonderful, funny looking, four-legged kids. I loved them.

To my daughter Lucy, I am so proud of you and how you have made a commitment to pursue your education and raise a wonderful family. Through all these great years, not only have you been a wonderful daughter but also a great friend. Having been a single parent with you for six years made me a better person. I love you and sorry that I will have to leave you. Steve, you have been a great husband to Lucy and a wonderful person for taking care of all the family. To my grandkids, Shawn, Nikki and Gina, I love you. All of you have turned out to be wonderful kids and beautiful adults. Take care of JoJo, Layla and Christian and share your love with them every day. Lucy, Brandy was a funny looking four-legged kid that took care of you when you were a young kid. We both loved him. After Brownie and Jack, among others, Haley came into your life and brought much love and joy to you and Steve. It was a sad day when she passed away. Lou, take care of yourself and thank you.

Stett, you are a wonderful son. I am elated that you are so intelligent, yet you are so down to earth that you make people around you feel comfortable. I am proud of your accomplishments and I love you. Being a National Merit Scholar, attending Stanford University and Washington and Lee Law schools speaks volumes for your intelligence. I am elated that you have such a wonderful and successful career. I am sorry to leave you. Take care of Erika, Barbara and my granddaughters, Keaton and Audrey. They are all special. Barbara, thank you for everything you did for Stett. Erika, thank you for the time on the tennis court. I hope that I did not destroy your game with my poor hitting. You have great parents.

To my mom who passed in 2013, I still miss you every day and especially on special days and holidays. I will see you soon. I will be forever thankful for everything you did for me during all my early school years. The sacrifices you made to support my sisters and I made me work hard to graduate from college (Southwest Texas State) and later to complete my Masters’ Degree (OLLU). I never told you, but I made a commitment to you that I would live a healthy life. I am proud to admit that I never indulged in cigarettes, drugs or any type of alcohol in my life. I felt that this was one way that I could honor you through all these years. I wanted you to be proud of me.

To my sisters, Ester, Josie and Irma, I love all of you and hope that you make the best of your lives. Margie was our sister. Unfortunately, she passed away due to various illnesses. We struggled together as kids and endured some rough and tough times. Living in abject poverty when we were kids challenged our well-being and made us stronger as adults. Give all my love to all my nieces and nephews.

To my stepdaughter Jessica and husband Ben, you guys have such a wonderful family. Dani, Gabi, Lexi and Bubba are terrific grandkids with a great future ahead of them. Love them forever and give them all the care that they might need. I love them. One of the most enjoyable activities for me, as I was deteriorating, was giving them tennis lessons. I hope that they continue playing as they get older. Jess, thank you for hosting special events and holidays at your house. People that attended always enjoyed your hospitality. Daniel, you have been a wonderful stepson. Keep taking care of your incredible mom and please continue to help her when she needs your help.

To the Hernandez family, thank you for accepting me into your family. You guys have been great in allowing me to join in every family activity and festive occasion. Thank you to my mother-in-law Mrs. Helen Hernandez and family members, Gerard, Frank, Olga Gracie, Rupert and all their children. Laura, your mom Sandra was a wonderful person. Laura and Derrick take care of the girls.

To my primo, Gabriel, thank you for being there for me as a young kid. I always looked at you as my brother. Your mom and dad were wonderful people. I loved them both. The gold fields (cotton picking) were challenging and made us better and stronger kids. I wish I could say that it was fun, but it was hard work.

To my best friend Abe Ramos, I will finally get to see you again and thank you for everything you did for me. You were like a brother to me. Unfortunately, you left us too soon, afflicted with prostate cancer. You had a wonderful wife and family. To my good friend, the late Frank Jasso, thank you for being a great friend as we were growing up. You had a wonderful family and mom. You were too young when you left us.

Marie, thank you for hosting all those special events and holidays at your house. The ambience offered your guests an opportunity to celebrate and feast on delectable meals. The real joy was watching the kids enjoying the special occasions. You are a terrific person. Take care of Nellie.

Dominque, you are a beautiful person, wonderful step- daughter and a great basketball player. Good luck to you in your career, take care of your mom and your beautiful daughter.

To all my friends at York-Johnson Controls San Antonio Plant, all of you made my professional life challenging and complete. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your careers. Hilda, thank you for all your assistance and help. You are so blessed to have a wonderful family. To all my deaf friends and hard of hearing employees at our manufacturing plant, thank you for making me a better person. Learning American Sign Language gave me the opportunity to communicate with all of you. Working with you daily made it a special experience. A special thank you to Jo Carol and David for their warm welcome on every visit to York, PA. Thank you Cat Man, Freddie, Anna, David, Weylon, Alfred, Jeff, Abel, The Rock, Rick, Benny, Byron, Joe and Raymond Linares and Eddie for your friendship. I apologize if I do not recognize all my friends by name in this farewell, but I am sure you can understand. A special thank you to our Plant Managers, Terry Hobson, Marcus Gruen, AJ Carr and the late Bill Perry for supporting all our employee programs at our manufacturing plant. I was proud of our self-sustained GED program that graduated 55 employees. Our staff served as instructors. I felt all along that our self-sustained GED program, hiring the deaf employees and all our recreational activities away from work enhanced employee morale. Our citizenship classes certified several employees. We were recognized by the Governor for the State of Texas and the City of San Antonio for our programs. To the late, Phil Wesley, thank you for being my friend. Terry, thank you for everything you did for me to make my career a success.

AJ and Terry, hiking across the Grand Canyon (Rim to Rim) in one day on three different years were epic hikes. These hikes were always indelibly impressed in my mind because they were tough, brutal but fun. Many people may question the fact that we were hiking out of the Grand Canyon on the Bright Angel trail in 118-120 degrees as fun, but it was worth it. Thank you, Martin for joining us on one of those hikes. Against the rules of the park, I did one more Rim to Rim hike in one day on my own. In 2009, AJ and I also hiked from the South Rim to Indian Gardens, Plateau Point, the Tonto Trail, across the plateau and hiked out on the Kaibab trailhead to the East Rim, in one day. This hike was beautiful and challenging. Also, the many different hikes at Big Bend with AJ and Terry to the South Rim on the Pinnacles, the Blue Creek trail, Juniper trail and Emory Peak were also exciting, challenging and fun. With my daughter, Steve and grandkids, we visited Yellowstone on a one-week trip. Seeing buffalo, wolf and grizzly in their natural environment was a terrific experience.

There are several people that I am grateful to because they believed in me and hired me. They are the late Dan Saucedo, Oscar Hernandez, Belvin Stewart, CJ Kittel and Ed Leweyllan. A special thanks to my good friend John Solis and his sister, Terry Solis, for all their help.

In addition to Hilda Caballero, there are some special people that made my working career easy, with different companies, because of their hard work and assistance. They are Marcella Karam, Linda Shedwin, Bertha Rodriguez and Angie Davila. Thank you for your tremendous help.

I have been fortunate to have had wonderful and terrific neighbors for the last twenty or so years. They included: Rick and Gloria, Gil and Carol, Mark and Sylvia, Gabriel and Debra, Kay and Ron and Georgia and John. Thank you for being so nice and terrific.

I was a jock all my life. I played football and ran track in high school. I started as a miler in high school for my first two years. Coach Victor Rodriguez switched me to the half mile and mile relay as a senior. I was fortunate to receive a track scholarship. In college as a freshman, we finished second in the Texas Relays in the two-mile relay behind the freshman UT team. Unfortunately, I had to quit my scholarship because I had to work to support my family. In high school, Coach Victor Rodriguez was an inspiration to many of us that were athletes under his coaching. A special thank you to you coach for being such a good person and a great coach. I also have a special thanks to Charlie Urbanowicz, ROTC sergeant Perez and the late coach, John Waits.

I played softball for approximately 10 years in the highest league in the city. The teams I played on included Chino's Lounge, Josephine's Parlor and Anchor Lounge (later Ray Carpenter). Thank you to Val Gonzales, Ram Davila, Ricky Garcia, Art (Pinky) Trevino, Big Bob, Chins, Walter Biegler, Buddy Slater, Dick Bartell, Wes Skidmore, among others, for being great teammates. A big thank you to Manager George Weilbacher and Manager Nathan Sultanmeir for giving me the chance to play on the same team with you guys. These were fun years. Val Gonzales was a great friend during that period of my life. I am forever thankful to him for his friendship. Val had a wonderful family. From the age of 14 to 18 years old, I played amateur baseball for Frank Gallardo. It was a pleasure playing with Larry, Danny, Tommy, Finley, Frank, and Ronnie. Thank you, Frank, the late Frank senior, and Ernest for the opportunity.

After getting football, basketball, softball, and baseball out of my system, I looked for a lifetime sport that would satisfy various disciplines in my life. Once I started to play tennis, I was hooked and became an avid player. I loved the sport and played competitively for many years. All my surgeries considered, I loved to play. To Juan Valdez, George Lett, Fred Jenkins, David Naworski, Joe Candelario, the late Jesse Garcia, Tough Man Rick, Eric, JR, Gino, Flint, David D, Jeff Byrd and Richard Ryher thank you for allowing me the opportunity to play tennis with you guys. A special thanks to Joe Rother, Ernie Rosales and Stephon Robertson. Rick, please give my thanks to the Saturday tennis group for allowing me the opportunity to play doubles with them. Jerry Bruns and Lon Andrews, thank you for your friendship. I was proud of being state and nationally ranked with the USTA. A special thank you to Al Theodore for being a friend.

During a couple of my elbow surgeries, while I was recovering, I ran two marathons. I ran in the Las Colonias Marathon and later ran the Houston Tennaco Marathon. My time in Houston qualified me for the Boston Marathon for my age group. After the two marathons, I was given clearance to start playing tennis again. So much for the running.

I have been lucky to travel to different countries. Some of my travels have been worked related and others have been for pleasure. I have been to London, Wimbledon, Dublin and Belfast in Ireland, Barcelona, Paris, Rome, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Cozumel, Cancun, Canada, New York (US Tennis Center and worked and visited NY at least 15 times), Taipei and Taichung in Taiwan, Seoul and Busan in South Korea and Hong Kong.

I was diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) in May of 2019. However, I suspected that I had this condition in 2016 due to symptoms that I experience during that year. Before afflicted with this fatal disease, I had eleven different surgeries for various reasons beginning at the age of 28. These surgeries included a complete rupture of my left Achilles tendon, three toe surgeries (screws on my two big toes), rotator cuff, AC joint, three right elbow surgeries and two major back surgeries. The first back surgery was a fusion of the L5-S1. In the 2009 hike with AJ, I felt on ice on one of the switchbacks that resulted in bulging discs between the L-1 to the L-5. I had a double laminectomy to repair the injury in 2017. After recovering from every single surgery, I could not wait to get back on the tennis court. I recovered well from all my surgeries; however, I could not beat this IPF condition. I lived a healthy life, always active with no alcohol of any kind, no cigarettes, or illegal drugs, but I guess it wasn’t enough. I always regarded my surgeries as my life’s minor inconvenience.

I was fortunate to have an incredible number of doctors who took care of me and expedited my return to the tennis court. A special thank you to Dr. Joe Heny for taking care of me since I was twenty years old. Also, a special thank you to Humana and their approval of all surgeries, services and prescriptions that help me recover or continue with my daily life. A special thank you doctor De Hoyos for treatments to prolong my life.

My death may possibly cause different levels of sorrow and emotional moments for different family members and friends. Please do not feel sorry for me. In the scheme of things and my whole life considered, I have lived a complete and happy life. I attribute this good fortune to kind, loving family members and nice people who became my dear friends. As I got older and my illness got me closer to mortality, I appreciated life and valued everyday with the best of spirits. To my friends and family members, may I encourage you to always follow your heart, pursue your dreams, keep living your lives to the fullest and tell the people most precious to you that you love them. I would be remiss, if I did not thank those of you that will find the time from your schedules to attend my memorial. Until we meet again, see you and take care.

I love you Babe.

John