Last Wednesday I received a phone call that sucked the air right out of me. I was in David when my dad informed me that my grandma, my mom’s mom, had suffered a stroke and was not expected to live. The news knocked me to the ground and sadness and homesickness flooded my eyes and pounded in my head. I paced furiously throughout the city for the next few hours. When I finally had a chance to hear my mom’s voice, I knew that I had to get home. Soon.
During the next couple days, I traveled to retrieve my passport from my site, acquired Peace Corps permission to leave the country, and booked a flight. Friday morning I crossed the Costa Rican border for San José for a flight back to Ohio. The long and lonely pilgrimage terminated in the heartland, on my parents’ farm, in the arms of my mother. The next day I went to the hospital with my mom to say my first set of goodbyes to my dying grandmother.
Throughout my week back home I tried to ease the shock and pain in familiar activities, but the dizzying grief and the last half-year in Panama had diminished their familiarity. My skin dried up and flaked with the lack of humidity in the air; the closed up house felt like a sealed box, so I tried opening all the windows; waking up thinking and speaking in Spanish just wouldn’t due. And then there was grocery shopping. Although I had been looking forward to the possibility of indulgence, I was rendered completely useless in U.S. grocery stores. I walked down aisle after aisle (freezing my tushy off) only to arrive with an empty basket to the registers. Overwhelmed with the so many options, not being confined to a Peace Corps budget, and having access to refrigeration at home was just too much. I couldn’t decide what, if anything, to purchase. And then there were the pains of guilt. My parents’ fridge and cupboards were all ready full of food; did we really need more?
So when all else failed I sought comfort in the kitchen. I cleaned and baked: zucchini bread, pear-stuffed pork chops, apple dumplings, chocolate chip cookies, and pear crisp. And then I made grape jam from the grapes that were beginning to fall from the vine outside. And just when I was starting to feel at home again, it was time to say goodbyes. My time at home had expired. I would miss both Grandma’s passing away and the homecoming of my Philadelphia-dwelling sister. Saturday with a very heavy heart (and a heavy bag, full of grape jam) I boarded the first of two planes that would carry me back to Costa Rica, and yesterday I re-crossed the border to return to Panama.
Pictures of the heartland and my journey back…
During the next couple days, I traveled to retrieve my passport from my site, acquired Peace Corps permission to leave the country, and booked a flight. Friday morning I crossed the Costa Rican border for San José for a flight back to Ohio. The long and lonely pilgrimage terminated in the heartland, on my parents’ farm, in the arms of my mother. The next day I went to the hospital with my mom to say my first set of goodbyes to my dying grandmother.
Throughout my week back home I tried to ease the shock and pain in familiar activities, but the dizzying grief and the last half-year in Panama had diminished their familiarity. My skin dried up and flaked with the lack of humidity in the air; the closed up house felt like a sealed box, so I tried opening all the windows; waking up thinking and speaking in Spanish just wouldn’t due. And then there was grocery shopping. Although I had been looking forward to the possibility of indulgence, I was rendered completely useless in U.S. grocery stores. I walked down aisle after aisle (freezing my tushy off) only to arrive with an empty basket to the registers. Overwhelmed with the so many options, not being confined to a Peace Corps budget, and having access to refrigeration at home was just too much. I couldn’t decide what, if anything, to purchase. And then there were the pains of guilt. My parents’ fridge and cupboards were all ready full of food; did we really need more?
So when all else failed I sought comfort in the kitchen. I cleaned and baked: zucchini bread, pear-stuffed pork chops, apple dumplings, chocolate chip cookies, and pear crisp. And then I made grape jam from the grapes that were beginning to fall from the vine outside. And just when I was starting to feel at home again, it was time to say goodbyes. My time at home had expired. I would miss both Grandma’s passing away and the homecoming of my Philadelphia-dwelling sister. Saturday with a very heavy heart (and a heavy bag, full of grape jam) I boarded the first of two planes that would carry me back to Costa Rica, and yesterday I re-crossed the border to return to Panama.
Pictures of the heartland and my journey back…
sunset over the tattered (from Hurricane Ike) corn
the farm
cattails
Mom. she just read Omnivore´s Delima, so I had her pose with the infamous monoculture
bull thistle 
the pregnant moos 
clouds over Columbus, Ohio 
somewhere south of Cuba
Laguna de Arenal, Costa Rica
3 comments:
All I'm going to say, since I've said everything else before, is this:
You've become quite the photographer there missy.. :)
I'm sorry to hear about your grandma, Janell. It's indescribably difficult to be so far away from home when the death of a family member is imminent. My grandpa passed away very suddenly this past summer, and all I wanted to do was get home as soon as I could....and I was at least in the same country! I can't imagine what you had to go through! But I am glad that you were able to go home, that you got to see your grandma before she passed, and that you got to spend time with your family. I'm sure they were so happy to see you, too. :)
Oops, didn't mean to leave my comment under "advanced renderman." And apparently I'm not smart enough to figure out how to change that....so just know that Bethany left that last comment. lol
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