Welcome back.

This is an email I sent my aunt up north who just returned from a trip to see our family back East. It allowed me to express my feelings regarding gramma’s loss now six months later.

“Welcome home! Yes, I enjoyed the pictures, lovely area, lots of trees and greenery, so different than LA. Big homes, Victorian? style, very colonial/Boston like. How fun to see the family, cousins and the rest. Hope you enjoyed your visit with tio, it’s amazing seeing his face, the elderly Guitierrez family look, not many left anymore, so sad, we’re losing our center, the generation that taught us everything we know.

I feel so inadequate to continue their legacy, as if I have learned nothing! I needed so much more, I wish I had listened, written, recorded, video taped everything I ever heard from abuelita Amanda. I know I carry much in me, but you know the feeling. I want to enjoy tio and tia much more. Once I get back from Russia, that has to be on my priority list.

Six months last Sunday, Jan3rd – July3rd. Sad, amazing, hard, unbelievable. I cry less but harder. I am glad for the tears because they connect me to the pain, to the love. I feel her in my tears, I picture her face and hear her voice when I feel sad, when I feel my tears rolling down my cheeks, they make me glad, because they’re tears for her. That’s the least I can do, to feel something real and genuine amidst the daily life we all live. Pain is sometimes good, when it’s for someone so deserving and giving as she was.

Much love,

David.”

Into the future,

davidT