Postscript: Abuelito dies

On Saturday September 17, my Abuelito Tico passed away. I found out in a quick e-mail from Host Dad and finally had the courage to call Host Mom to offer my condolences. There is something so real about Host Mom and her family, something so raw and true, something I haven't been able to find here. I think I'm meant to keep in touch with my tico family, if only to keep connected to that raw spirit, that idea that simple and good are virtues to be held in the highest esteem. That work is valuable if it means your family can eat, sleep and be safe. And that family is the most important thing in the world.

The thing that impresses me most about Host Mom's re-telling of the events surrounding Abuelito's death is that she and her brothers and sister were all able to reconcile and find one another together in faith during the week he was in the hospital. They are now gathering every morning to pray the rosary together.

It's hard to say goodbye to Abuelito. It's hard to be so far away, where everyone I know can't possibly understand how a kind, wonderful, elderly tico man with a sparkle in his eye and a cache of 10 amusing English words (including "bye-bye" and "beautiful") managed to win a place in my heart in just six months. But like everything that happened to me in Costa Rica, it happened over time, took me by surprise, and changed me.

I'm writing this post-script to my blog during my first week of classes at Harvard. It's ironic to be at the center of the intellectual universe, an instution of great renoun and power, and to feel nothing but the responsibility that this access will give me to amplify the voices of the poor and voiceless. While everyone networks around me I want to jump and shout "this is bullshit!" and transport them all to the gracious hospitality I received in several poor and humble homes near the family finca (farm) in Costa Rica, and the similar hills and farms in Rwanda.

My worldview is different. I am different. Like Tom Friedman, I too think the world is flat. But for me, the world is a flat red clay dirt road with women shuffling along in bare feet with water cans balanced on their heads while the "relief workers" in the SUVs go speeding by. We may all finally be traveling on the same road, but in vastly different realities.

All of the books and innovations and ideas and power don't mean anything if they don't bring you to live a life of faith, family and service.