Costa Rica 2019: We Are Family

Lovely Girl #2 took this selfie of us with my Costa Rican family of the heart--Rosa-Emilia, Chena, Vital, and Jose-Antonio.

Before we start this post, a few numbers:

• Year I swore into the Peace Corps: 1979
• Ages of the parents in the family I lived with during this experience: 48 (the dad) and 44 (the mom)
• Year I finished my service: 1982
• Year I had intended to return to Costa Rica: 1983, or 1984, or maybe 1985
• Year  I actually returned to Costa Rica: 2001
• Change in family size in the intervening years: +1 husband, +4 sons
• Number of times I swore I would return following the 2001 trip: Every year. I promise.
• Number of times I actually returned following the 2001 trip: Once, a long weekend 50th birthday celebration organized by a Husband who knew how much I wanted it. 
• Current ages of the parents in the family where I lived during my Peace Corps experience: 88 (the dad) and 84 (the mom)

Those numbers are the closest I can come to explaining the urgency I felt to get back to Costa Rica.  For years I've put my second heart home on the table as a possible vacation destination, but it was never quite the right time. Time, or finances, or other priorities simply made this trip a luxury, and frankly, when four kids are growing up and getting through college and setting out on their own, luxury isn't an option. 

This year, though, the trip suddenly flipped from luxury to necessity in my heart of hearts. 

During the years I lived in Tilaran, a beautiful city in the low mountains of Guanacaste, I roomed with a family that adopted me as their big, bumbling, blonde galoot of a daughter. Chronologically I fell between Vital and Chena's two daughters, just a couple of years older than the two boys who rounded out the family. They became my family of the heart. 

 And because Chena was (like most of her contemporaries) a housewife, she became the most delightful surrogate mother in  a two-continent region. She was the one who showed me the societally-accepted ropes of being a Tica, taught  me how to brew a perfect cup of cafe chorreado, and laughed with me at the absurdities of life. She was the one who nursed me when (at age 25) I caught a horrendous case of the measles and was desperately ill, and when I managed to crash my motorcycle into a pasture and the resulting bruised (broken?) ribs kept me from being able to dress myself. She was the one who slogged through calf-deep mud with me to go to a dance in a nearby town, both of us squealing with disgust. 

I was 24, and she was the mother of grown children, so I thought of her as the most fun-loving, full-of-beans elderly person I knew (ah, the arrogance of youth). Years later I still laughed thinking of the afternoons we spent drinking coffee and discussing the neighbors' foibles. 

We've kept up through Facebook, and with occasional video chats, but this year my simmering need to be in the same room with my Tico family boiled over. 

Here's the thing about family of the heart: Whether you have been away from  them for 40 hours or 40 days or 40 years, that time compresses into a tiny, manageable thing that can be slipped into a pocket when you're together again, and it's as if you've never been apart. 

I walked onto the porch of the concrete house where I'd shared a room with Rosa-Emilia, my Tica sister, and called into the open front door. Within moments I was hugging Chena, then Vital. They are older and less healthy than they were during our hugs two decades ago. Vital, who's now 88, sleeps much of the day. At 84 Chena walks with a cane and pain in her right hand (arthritis? carpal tunnel?) has made it impossible to do the regular housework so a lovely neighbor takes care of them. 

Within minutes, though, we were laughing again, and that lovely laugh hasn't changed at all. 

We spent much of two days with the family--Chena and Vital, of course, and their daughter whose room I invaded for more than two years, and their son Jose-Antonio who lives just down the street and took us on a photographic excursion high above the city. (Another daughter splits her time between a home in the United States and trips back to Costa Rica, and the youngest son lies in the capital city.)

We reminisced, and caught up on neighbors and families, and shook our heads sadly at the state of politics in the world, and everyone laughed at the size differential between my boys and my tiny Tica mama:

They're standing on the same step

By the time Boy#2 and Lovely Girl#2 arrived to continue our vacation further inland, we had exhausted our hosts and my non-Spanish-speaking family was ready to understand more conversation than they had for the past hours. We took a final round of pictures and prepared to get on the road. Chena pulled me close, and traced a cross on my forehead with her thumb. "Dios me la bendiga," she whispered a blessing.

I waved once more to Chena, who was standing in the  door of the house, then we drove away. I only cried for a few minutes.

The Ticos have a phrase they use whenever they talk about an event in the future: Si Dios quiere. It means "If God wills it," and is almost as pervasive as "puravida." Are you going to the market today? Si Dios quiere. Will we win the soccer game? Si Dios quiere. Will the present arrive in time for Christmas? Si Dios quiere. 

Will I see this family of my heart again in this lifetime? Si Dios quiere.