Goodbye, dear Sara!

Today, Sara’s lovely daughters wrote an e-mail announcing their mother’s departure for her heavenly home. I did not expect it and maybe I should have. I never thought of Sara as older than me, and yet I knew her age, 89. Sixteen years older than me and, yet, 3 years younger than my mother when she died 21 years ago at age 92.

In their e-mail, Sara’s daughters mention their mother’s love for foreign cultures and languages. Sara had a prodigious mind and an indomitable spirit. Yet, I remember also her suffering consciousness, her grief that took her to the brink of suicide. That one time she re-emerged thanks to her interest in the suffering of others. She joined a group of dissident Catholics who did social work with the people living at the margins of society. She understood their suffering, which mirrored her own.

For years, I lost touch with her. I had to survive my own loss and learn how to live alone, far from Rome. California had become my home. I had lost her e-mail address, but she had not lost mine. I’m grateful to her daughters for using their mother’s e-mail to let all her friends know of Sara’s relocation.