Itβs a week after Fatherβs Day but on Tuesday, Adalberto Gallegos will receive his gift from his son.
The father and son, Adalberto Gallegos Jr., will undergo kidney transplant surgery.
The younger Gallegos will donate a kidney to his father, a well-known Tucson singer who has renal failure and been undergoing dialysis for nearly four years.
But this son-to-father gift goes beyond the two men. The transplant is really for the entire Gallegos clan.
βI knew it would always be me,β said the younger Gallegos, 42, who like his father sings and performs.
To a good number of Tucsonans, the elder Gallegos is one of the best-known vocalists to come out of this part of the desert. But the one-time member of the youth mariachi ensemble Los Changuitos Feos de Tucson made his artistic mark deep in Texas, where Tejano music reigns.
Gallegos was the lead singer for the revolutionary, genre-bending Latin Breed. He was the first non-Texan to be enshrined in the Texas Roots Hall of Fame, which focuses on Tejano music. The elder Gallegos also was inducted into the Tucson Musicians Museum. In addition to his Tejano music, Gallegos, who as a kid performed live on the stage of the old Cine Plaza downtown, composes and has also recorded several mariachi records.
Gallegos knows he is fortunate.
βItβs a blessing,β he says.
The younger Gallegos was not the first person who tested as a possible donor for his dad. Gallegosβ wife, Lourdes, and other family members were considered potential donors, but they werenβt a match.
βI told my mom how it was going down,β said Gallegos Jr., who was ultimately found to be suited to be the donor, recalling his own words when his dad was first diagnosed with renal failure. βGod has a funny way of working things out.β
While the father and son are confident that the hours-long operation will be successful and that the elder Gallegosβ body will accept the new kidney, their outlook on life has not always been bright. Both men have had their share of darkness.
In December 2007, the two were indicted by a Tucson federal grand jury on charges of laundering money from the sale of marijuana over a two-year period. The following May, Gallegos Sr. pleaded guilty to one count of money-laundering conspiracy and was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison plus 200 hours of community service. A year later the younger Gallegos was sentenced to 15 months.
But those days donβt compare to the day in August 2001 that Paul Daniel Gallegos, their son and brother, was found murdered in Texas alongside a cousin. Paul was 21 years old.
Both the death and the indictments are subjects that the Gallegos find difficult to talk about.
βMy biggest price is when I lost my son,β said Gallegos.
They did wrong, they acknowledged.
But the Gallegosβ story is not about looking back.
Father and son are focused on moving forward, embracing their love for music, their love for family and their faith.
βI wasnβt counting on anything, but God is taking care of me,β said the younger Gallegos. His dad added that he βwoke upβ and turned his life around. His renewed focus centers on people who are most important to him.
βI did not reciprocate the love I have received from my wife,β said the older Gallegos. βNow itβs my turn.β
The elder Gallegos, 61, who joined Latin Breed just as he was leaving his teen years and remained with the band off and on for 40 years, is looking to revive his music and career here in Tucson. Heβs recruiting musicians and hopes to return to the studio to record some of own songs and some classic Mexican rancheras.
βMusic is an escape for me. Itβs a comfort zone,β Gallegos says. But he laughed when he recalled that as a child, when asked to sing by the family, he was a reluctant performer. βI never wanted to be a singer,β he said.
But the music called to him, just as it has to the younger Gallegos, who sings with the Tucson Tejano band Latin Society.
First things first, however: The kidney transplant operation is Tuesday.
It will be the gift of renewed life from a son to his father.
