I had to miss my guild’s weekly Ice Crown Citadel raid yesterday. Real life always takes preference over World of Warcraft (yes, even though WoW looks so great on the 27″ iMac screen) and yesterday real life hit us hard. My mother inlaw, Mireya, passed away in Costa Rica. It was a tough time for my wife being two thousand miles away as this happened. The role I was playing yesterday was of supporting husband (that and supporting parent are my two main roles). We spent the evening packing, shopping for mementoes my wife will need for her trip, duplicating photos of Mireya for my wife to give to her siblings.
It was a serious time. It was a sad time. But it was also a special time as we talked about how Mireya (or Tita as we called her) would never have wanted to live bound to a wheelchair as she had become. She was always a strong, vibrant woman, life in wheel strapped to oxygen just wasn’t her style. This is a woman who raised eight children, six girls bookended by two boys. The eight children each became strong individuals in their own right. They were eight different personalities - each of them alike in some ways, vastly different in others. I used to tell my wife you could ask each of brothers and sisters directions to a spot and they would each give you seven different answers.
Mireya also stressed the important of education to her children, and they listened. In the family we have: a veterinarian, a dentist, a mechanical engineer, a lawyer, a teacher, a social worker, a real-estate mogul and an ivy league professor of food science. Quite the array of skills there. (The ivy league professor is my favorite being that she is my wife)
Besides being a mother of eight, grandmother to fourteen and great grandmother to four, Mireya was also a politician. She served in the Costa Rican senate under president Oscar Arias. In fact one of the more embarrassing phone conversations of my life is when Mr. Arias called the house looking for Mireya. I said, “Wow, you speak really good English.” He said, “I should. I did go to Oxford.” Nuff said. Once when driving by the president’s house my son asked if we could stop there and visit the president. Mireya said, “Sure!” My wife and thought we should leave the president be.
Mireya opened up her house to me, this strange gringo who somehow convinced her sixth child to marry him. For that I am eternally grateful to her. I feel bad I cannot attend her funeral but our son’s school schedule just won’t allow it. I’m sure Mireya being the mother, grandmother and great grandmother she was would understand that.
She was an amazing woman. We will certainly miss the weekly Skype chats. She hardly got to use the new Mac Mini we brought her in October. Her presence in that house that she opened up to my wife, son and I will be greatly missed, yet it will always be felt. Rest in peace, Tita. Your children, grandchildren and great children will carry on your legacy!
Thanks for sticking with me. Next week, a lighter column I promise!
My condolences to you and you wife.