Traveling seems to cleanse the spirit. It so many ways. I recently traveled to NY. My home land, my home, my true love. How I’ve missed it! It called me loud. I responded just as loud. I was able to reconnect with family that I haven’t seen in years and it felt so good. My soul was literally restored in some aspect.
My family is so close and all this time and separation has really made a gap with my external and internal family. My mother, the decision maker, has been absent for the last five or six years and no one has decided to take over that position and be the main decision maker. So now the brothers and sisters (a.k.a. my aunts and uncles) have had a hard time trying to decide what to do with my grandparents.
Here’s the story. My grandmother approximately a month ago while shopping fell on the concrete and injured her knee badly. So badly that she was taken to the hospital to have immediate knee surgery to fix the accident. Because of this she had to stay in a nursing home until she was allowed to leave. Once she was able to leave my aunts and uncles needed to take time out of their schedule to take care of my grandmother. Each taking a week off to fully take good care of her. Yet my mother lives 12 hours away, not being able to take a week off from her time her to do so.
It so happens that a wedding my family had refused to go to because of limit seating made space for us so that we could all go to the wedding. So we were able to go to NY for the weekend. So my mother took the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Also, mind you I wanted to go but was nervous to go. I hadn’t been to NY in three years. I had changed and so had it.
My apprehension was rooted in the fact that my family was going to ask probing questions about my unfulfilled life. Am I dating anyone? Where am I working? What will I do with my life? Did I graduate from college? Questions I did not want to answer because I didn’t have an answer to. So I was fearful to visit. But it was so refreshing.
Not many people asked me those questions and if they did it didn't seem like the were being intrusive. First I hung out with the bride to be and her sister. It was lovely to just be cousins. I don’t get to be that role too much anymore. Just to laugh reminisce and be family. The next day another cousin picked me up and we did the same. Just be family. Laugh, live, shop, and find happiness in the easy musings of life. We didn’t need much more than that! Later that night I was able to hang out with more cousins. It just felt so right. If felt like home. My heart couldn’t bear all the happiness. Then the next day I was able to go to my home church visit and go to the wedding we were had to go to.
It was amazing to be around family. To be around my cousins, aunts, uncles, second cousins (which hispanic families 2nd cousins always refer the older generation as aunts and uncles) and grandparents. I was in heaven. I didn’t notice how much I missed that island! I missed its changing weather, I missed its beautiful noises, smells, and streets. I missed it all!
I want to move back. Someday soon.
But back to my mother… in the end the family decided to allow her to go back home and they were going to take care of my grandmother themselves. We couldn’t afford to allow my mother to stay a week in NY and travel back on her own.
But yes I miss my home. There’s no other place like it!
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