A woman in Catalonia wrote me to ask for permission to do a story on my parents, who I mention on my blog lived in the northern part of Catalonia near Girona and the French border. Our entire family lived there but my siblings were so young that they do not have as clear memories as I do. I know the picture of my parents featured in the article was one cherished by my mom. On this same cement slab is where I learned how to ride a bike. We lived there from 1975-1977, when we moved to live on base in New York City on Governor’s Island. I remember celebrating the American Bicentennial on base in Spain. It was quite a culture shock to move to NYC. The article is written in Catalan, a Latin-based language of the region of Spain where we lived.
I only saw my sister and her family one time during Covid so far, so it was nice that they got to see our house and hang out for a while. I’m so proud of my niece who is getting ready for college with her excellent grades.
Alexandra and her boyfriend Davy visited us for the first time since the start of the Covid era. We drove around to the Bolinas area and stopped in a very cool wooded park downtown nearby, then went on to Mount Tam’s lookout. Eventually, we went to the beach and enjoyed a beautiful evening with our two younger dogs and our guest dog Fluffly. We stopped for a snack in town as well. It was a lovely day with sightseeing in some of the corners of California many rarely venture to.
Gaia is my cute little cousin (once removed) in Italy who is studying English and who we got to spend a lot of time with during our last trip to Italy (before Covid). She has been good about sending us voice messages on Whatsapp and staying in touch even though she was painfully shy when we first saw her. Here is our video message for her birthday, which I understand thrilled her:
Today is a sad four-year anniversary of Mom dying much too soon, made bittersweet because we are only a few days before we buy our dream house here in California. I know she wanted a better life for all of her kids, even though her scrimping still has not yielded that. Indeed, it has been squandered by one she trusted and we are still fighting to make her dream manifest. What’s made me more melancholy the last few days is the realization that had she lived, this house would have afforded an ideal situation for her to have her own independent place on the property. Sadly, there is no reason for me to think about such a prospect, because I no longer have a mother that I can take care of, as we did the last few months of her life when she was taken by a particularly insidious form of cancer.
