confessions of a reformed tourist
It has been a year and eight days since my Grandma passed away. I miss her. A lot. She lived the last 3+ years of her life in Grenada. She was pretty senile, and I got the sense that everything – the weather, the people, the view from her verandah – seemed to her like [...]
Yesterday’s post was harder to write than I expected. All I really wanted to do was throw together a quick intro, then post my eulogy. But the “intro” ended up much longer than I intended, and not nearly as crisp as I’d hoped. By the time I was finished I had let Jack nap for [...]
In the months before Grandma Vera passed, my biggest fear was that she might suffer very greatly. I’d heard stories about Parkinsonians who had become unable to swallow and had essentially starved to death. Very slowly. With their minds intact. So when I prayed about Grandma, I prayed that once she could not take nourishment, [...]
Grandma Vera went home today. It was peaceful. That’s Vera, last May, on Grand Anse Beach. We were there celebrating Jack’s first birthday. Love you.
Madelyn Dunham passed away yesterday. She was 86. Barack Obama and Maya Soetoro-Ng released this statement: “It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer. She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was [...]
Do you remember when I was 16 and going to Hawaii? You told me about the Honolulu Santiagos, your cousins who left Puerto Rico as teens, like you did. Except they went to Hawaii instead of New York. They’d heard, you said, about the pineapple. You said I should look them up. But Grandpa, I [...]
The best teachers in life are the ones who do not necessarily *tell* us everything they teach, but those who teach by example. The best teachers are those who let us make our own mistakes and learn from them. They are supportive, they are mentors, and perhaps the greatest strength of the best teachers is [...]
