It was early, so early that the sun had not yet peaked over the Tucson horizon.
It was cold, so cold that Jose Ruben Ortiz needed to bundle up just to get on his bike that morning.
It was quiet, so quiet that Ortiz could hear his own thoughts, louder than the rubber coursing over the pavement.
Ortiz had been through the ringer the previous several months, one blow coming after the next. Relationship problems. Missing his children. Watching his father, Ruben Ortiz, recover from the effects of diabetes, which required the amputation of both of his legs.
And then, the ultimate tragedy: The elder Ortiz’s death on Dec. 3, 2020, because of COVID-19 complications.
That morning, Ortiz pedaled away, trying to out-race his own emotions. As if that’s possible. He was two miles into what he thought would be a few-mile-long ride. Everything flooded back. Ortiz screamed into the dark void.
“’Why did you leave me?’” he yelled.
To his father? To the void? Who knows? An unanswerable question.
Ortiz ended up riding another 13 miles that day, longer than he’d ever ridden. At the 15-mile mark, he hit the brakes, dust flying. He recalls it feeling like a movie scene. He came to a complete stop and took a deep breath.
“And right there, I was able to let go,” he said. “Not let go of my dad, but let go of the pain. A lot of other things I was going through — financial issues, relationship issues, dealing with work — I just sat there and said, figure out what you have to do. Finish the race. Just get it done.”
Not exactly the ideal preparation for El Tour de Tucson, but preparation nonetheless.
They’ll ride the 57-mile El Tour course on Saturday — Ortiz and his two friends, Conrad Rodriguez and Jorge Rivero — in honor of Ortiz’s fallen father.
It’s kind of an ironic tribute, actually: When the younger Ortiz was a child in Nogales, his bike would be stolen so often that Ortiz the Elder eventually stopped replacing it. Just walk, he’d tell his son.
That son grew up to be a robust 290 pounds, and if you’d asked Ortiz two years ago if he would be putting 30, 40, even 50 miles on his bicycle for one ride, he would have laughed at you. Since that fateful morning — and that fateful mourning — Ortiz estimates he has lost more than 30 pounds.
He’ll be joined by Rodriguez and Rivero, neither exactly svelte themselves, and the group has taken to calling themselves Team Round.
“Maybe Team Robust,” Rodriguez said with a laugh. “My daughter likes the term, ‘Rubenesque.’”
Weeks ago, while drinking with his buddies, Ortiz asked if they’d want to join him in tribute.
“The reality was, whatever the mental state, the sentiment would’ve been the same,” Rodriguez said. “I’ve ridden this 50-plus mile run before, but I didn’t finish. This time, I’m going to finish. Not for myself. For him. For his father.
“… But then, when you wake up hungover the next day and it’s a non-refundable registration, it’s like, ‘I’m committed this point.’”
It may not have been the anticipated tribute — in fact, it began as an inebriated tribute — but it makes perfect sense to them.
“We’re no spring chickens,” Rodriguez said. “But for all of us to rally behind him, to want to do this for his pops, that’s where this stems from.”
And for Ortiz, the motivation is simple.
“I’m trying to honor him by being here longer,” Ortiz said.
To know Ruben Ortiz was to love him, his son says.
“My dad was a big teddy bear,” Jose Ortiz said. “You could do no wrong. Everyone gravitated to him. A loving husband, father, brother, son. He gave of himself. If we were together for the family reunion, he’d be asking if everyone had enough to eat, to drink, having a good time. When we visited back home, we’d get there and everything was already lined up.”
Originally from Nogales, Sonora, Ortiz and his wife — Angelika — immigrated to the United States in the mid-1980s, settling in in the Nogales of the North. He worked for the Chamberlain Group in Nogales, and he loved baseball. Loved softball, too, and coached it.
But when the effects of diabetes started mounting in the late 2010s, something in Ruben Ortiz changed. An infection in his toe required amputation, but that was not enough, and he lost both of his legs.
“During that year, the person I described — that jolly teddy bear — he really changed,” Jose Ortiz said. “But weirdly enough, when they took his legs, that person came back. ‘I want to play with my grandchildren, I want to drive, I want to walk.’ He had this energy back. It was like, in taking his legs, they took the bad things away from him. He started walking, his health was getting better. It felt like, ‘Our dad’s back, we’re a family, we’re all put together again.’”
Last year, when he arrived in Nogales for Thanksgiving dinner, Jose Ortiz was pulled aside by his mother. Talk to your dad, she said, he’s having breathing troubles. He could barely breathe when he lied down.
Angelika took him to the emergency room, even though she was not allowed in. Before they left, Ortiz remembers shaking his father’s hand and telling him, “I’ll see you later.” His father said, “I’ll be right back.”
When they arrived at the emergency room, the news was stark. He was tested for COVID-19 and came back positive; doctors put him on a ventilator almost immediately. On Dec. 2, the birthday of Ortiz’s elder sister, Cynthia, there were complications.
On Dec. 3, Ruben Ortiz had three heart attacks and the doctor called and said if he had one more, his body wouldn’t be able to handle it. Around 12:30 in the morning, Jose Ortiz got the call.
“When COVID first hit, we had family members who got it, but they were able to get through it,” Ortiz said. “My father was the first one who passed. You’re either on one side of the ballpark or another, if it affected you or not, if you believe in the vaccine or not. I had a lot of family members who knew we lost my dad, and they still didn’t believe it was real.
“For us as a family, it’s not about COVID, or heart attacks, diabetes — it’s just about the fact we lost my father.”
Even at 39, with an older sister and a younger sister and a mother grieving the loss of her husband, Ortiz was not ready to become the man of the house. His father was only 64.
“As a son, that’s a big message to receive,” he said. “How do you process that? Especially while you’re grieving through your own process. More than anything, I’ve just tried to be more present. Taking the time to reach out to my little sister, how are you doing, how’s work coming along? At least I’m trying to reach out more.
“I’ve told her, ‘I’m never going to fill dad’s shoes, but know that I’m always going to be there for you.”
On Saturday, his family will be there for him, too, waiting at the finish line. His friends will be at his side, too.
Ortiz just hopes they finish the race. Team Robust, after all.
“They’re going to see me off and hopefully five hours later I’m not dead somewhere in the Tucson desert,” he said. “I’m still 250 pounds, bro. That’s a lot of weight to carry. Poor bike.”
He carries another heavy burden, too.
The pain of losing his father hasn’t left Ortiz, even if he’s found better ways to confront it.
“When you see someone like your father — who is indestructible to you — and he deteriorates, it does wake you up,” Ortiz said. “But my father passed, and the very next day, I wasn’t eating any better. It came down to making a choice. I have two beautiful children and I want to be there for them. I remember yelling at my dad, you left your best friend. My son and him were best friends. I remember yelling, ‘You were supposed to dance with my daughter.’
“I want to be there for my children. And my grandchildren. Even if it means getting on this bike and not eating this cupcake. Even if it’s 45 degrees and 5 a.m., you can still get that ride in. Sometimes it feels good to sleep that extra hour.
“But what you get from that ride is so much more important.”
