"La Isla Bonita"

I know this post is not technically a story FROM my mother, but it's about my parents' home land ... so it counts :p

My thirteenth birthday was spent in Terceira with my parents, my brother and my uncle's family who lived there. I think that for everyone there is something magical about finally turning thirteen and becoming an official teenager. For me, this magic was amplified surrounded by spending it with my family in the place where they were raised.

Because my father, my brother and I all danced in a Portuguese folklore group, we were presented with the unique opportunity to travel as a group to Terceira to perform. I am forever grateful that my parents decided we should all take advantage of this - and it turned out to be instrumental in shaping my future. So it was in June of 1997 that my brother, my parents and I made the trip to their homeland.

Here is where I witnessed my father really truly happy. He was vibrant and full of energy. He and my uncle literally ran around like teenagers in an attempt to show my brother and I all that their little island had to offer. From the time my uncle randomly dug up a potato from someone's garden on the side of the road to the moment we stepped into the house which was built by my parents for their marriage, I was overcome with a sense of belonging. Although I was not raised on that small island in the middle of the Atlantic, here is where I really felt the strength of my roots. Surrounded by bullfights, feasts and family, I was home.

Appropriately enough, Madonna's "La Isla Bonita" happened to be a popular song during this time - even then I found it so fitting that I was lucky to be spending time at this beautiful island. I will forever remember riding in the backseat of my uncle's blue punch-buggy singing "La Isla Bonita" at the top of my lungs, windows down, wind blowing .. the whole nine. I had the feeling that life would last forever. That we would all be together for the rest of time. If there was a moment in my life that I could revist, time and time again, that one would definitely take the cake.

In the song, she sings "..it all seems like yesterday, not far away.." And she couldn't be more right.

Missing you.