DIVIDED WE STAND - FOR NOW.
It has been about a year since I have written. I purposely haven’t written…I took a sabbatical, time-off…a breather, a step back. In the year I took off I endured personal hardships that quite frankly I am happy to leave in the past. 2019 started off well- a wonderful wedding at the end of 2018 that reminded me of all that I have to be grateful for…Family.
Then I got a reality check- at the end of January 2019 my aunt in Venezuela was sick. This was a different kind of sickness, the kind that you knew was going to be life changing. I didn’t know it when this whole ordeal started, but I was about to discover just how different this sickness was. She was dying of cancer. From the time mostly everyone in the family knew, which was probably the first week of February to the day she departed this life on March 26, 2019 there was nothing to be done. Her fate had been sealed. I wasn’t and am still not upset that she died from cancer. I am upset and heartbroken that there was absolutely nothing that anyone could do. I feel that we were robbed of the chance to save her life. There was no amount of money that we could send to Venezuela for treatment, there was no chance that she would live…all anyone could do was make her as comfortable as possible. Whatever could have been done didn’t matter…my aunt, made her choice to suffer her illness in silence hidden from everyone. She kept it to herself as long as she could. That above all else hit me at my core and has kept me from writing…
The the thing about being separated from your family that no one really talks about is that while you have the luxury of technology it doesn’t replace the one on one contact- and it never will. I and all the Venezuelans that cannot travel home are collateral damage. Our families have been forever scarred, separated and affected by the political situation and continue to be.
I was born in the USA and have always considered myself to be bi-cultural. With immediate family in Venezuela when I was a child we would frequent back home to visit. Quite honestly, those trips are some of my most fondest memories. And as an adult when I was able I would always return home because I never wanted any relative of mine to think that just because I lived thousands of miles away and had a different life than they did that it meant that I didn’t know where I came from and that I had a family. I never wanted them to think that I had forgotten them. I loved them all and needed them all. The reality is that those trips were not just for them but also for me. They fulfilled me…and I often flew back to the USA sobbing uncontrollably. It was difficult to be away.
Having said that, I have never been able to travel home to grieve any death. My last trip was in 2012 and I have no idea when I will be able to return to see anyone…A reality you learn to live and deal with, but one that you certainly feel because no matter what, one always needs their family.
My aunt, Beatriz, lived for her family…She never put her love for any family member above that of another, and never ever did I hear her speak ill of any of her siblings or any person for that matter. She was the epitome of grace, faith, love and forgiveness. She stood for family and loved each one of us equally.
I miss her a lot..and is a major reason why I have kept silent for a year.
People mourn in different ways…and for me I not only mourn the death of my aunt but the separation of a family that used to be close. I have hopes though…That the family that remains will one day be reunited. That whatever disagreements, discord, misunderstandings, or hurt will be resolved…
One thing I will never forget is that my aunt’s last days were filled with visits from family and loved ones. I’d call just about every day…and every day she was surrounded with what meant most to her. Family.
So I started writing about family and will end with family. There are some you choose some you don’t- but in the end it’s really what matters most. And my aunt Beatriz taught me that. Frankly, the best lesson she could have taught me.
Until we meet again….
