Remembering Reynaldo Caparas, Juneau’s DMV guy – Alaska Public Media

Taking your driver’s check is a ceremony of passage. However in the event you’re like most individuals, you won’t keep in mind a lot about it besides perhaps the parallel parking. And also you in all probability don’t even keep in mind the individual sitting within the seat subsequent to you with their foot hovering over the emergency brake pedal.

That’s, except you grew up in Juneau within the final 20 years, the place many youngsters took their driving check with Reynaldo Caparas, identified to most as Uncle Rey.

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Caparas’ daughter, Marina Banks, says that of all of the issues her dad was to her and to the neighborhood, he would actually like to be remembered as “the DMV man.”

Caparas was born in 1955 in Manila, Philippines. When he was a younger man in his 20s he received a job on a cruise ship, first as a line cook dinner after which as an entertainer.

“Oh my gosh,” Banks mentioned. “My dad had a really sturdy voice. I might say my dad was an alto type of singer. And he simply cherished the highlight for certain.”

After a couple of years of visiting Juneau on the ship, he determined to immigrate. Banks says that was partly as a result of there have been so many Filipinos in the neighborhood already, however principally as a result of he met his spouse Melba and determined to remain and begin a household.

Within the Eighties and Nineties, he labored at resorts round city and on the ticket counter for Delta Airways. He had a present for customer support. He received power from serving to folks.

He finally landed a job with the state on the DMV, the place he labored for 20 years making folks snicker in one of the vital unlikely locations.

Banks mentioned the household received their dad a fart machine one yr.

“And he introduced it into the DMV,” she mentioned. “And he would place it in random spots within the workplace when there was like an extended line. And my dad had the little distant and he would really like play it, and it appeared like somebody farted within the nook. And my dad thought that was so, so humorous.”

He retired from the DMV on the finish of April and spent his time on the different place lots of people knew him from: the fitness center. He was an everyday on the Alaska Membership within the valley. Even in his 60s he would play basketball with highschool youngsters, telling them he would dwell to be 100.

That’s the place he was when he collapsed in mid-Could. Based on one member of the family, he instructed the paramedics that he hadn’t had an opportunity to get pleasure from his retirement but. However he died later on the hospital of a pulmonary embolism. And that’s been exhausting for the household to swallow as a result of he was so wholesome.

About 10 years in the past, his daughter says, he began consuming actually wholesome. He stopped consuming pork and white rice — staples of Filipino meals. He switched to brown rice and fish, and he exercised so much.

Caparas had COVID-19 earlier this yr, and Banks, who’s a nurse, thinks perhaps that contributed to the blood clot that killed him.

“From all of the issues I’ve learn, COVID has proven to type of mess with the clotting issue within the blood,” she mentioned. “And it’s simply loopy, as a result of my dad was so wholesome. And I believe that’s why most of us are simply so, so devastated. And simply so in disbelief as a result of my dad was the healthiest individual we all know.”

However there’s some consolation in blaming COVID for his loss of life, she says. It’s simply one thing to type of clarify the suddenness of it, which is so exhausting to course of.

Within the Filipino Catholic custom, mourners pray with the physique for 9 days. The Caparas household didn’t do this, precisely. As a substitute they hosted two days of lengthy viewings, the place dozens of individuals got here to pay their respects.

However after the viewings, Marina says the strangest factor occurred. The household got here dwelling and the room stuffed with the scent of flowers and her dad’s cologne. She says he all the time wore means an excessive amount of, but it surely made the odor unmistakable.

“And so my mother would simply sit in there and speak to my dad, you recognize, let him know that we’re right here,” she mentioned.

By morning the odor could be gone, but it surely returned the following night time after they received again from the viewing. Banks says that since they don’t seem to be able to let him go, they’ll maintain on to him this manner till even the scent of him has moved on.

Reynaldo Caparas died on Could 16, 2022. He was 66 years previous. He leaves behind his spouse, six youngsters and eight grandchildren.

This story is a part of KTOO’s participation within the America Amplified initiative to make use of neighborhood engagement to tell and strengthen our journalism. America Amplified is a public media initiative funded by the Company for Public Broadcasting.