The name of our blog is Los Quatro Vientos meaning the four winds. This name came about because our father was once going to name a restaurant after us, his four children. We thought this name was fitting as we all came together to converge and share our stories in one family blog.
The past week has been a trying one for our family. We lost our Uncle Homero to sudden cardiac arrest. This news was very shocking to us. Since the death of our own father two and a half years ago, we have been rekindling our relationship to what we thought was our last connection to the Huerta family.
Right away, we knew that the four of us needed to come to California and be with the rest of our mourning family. We made the arrangements and left Washington and Oregon as soon as we could. During this time, our hearts ached for our cousins as we vividly remembered the horrid empty feelings that came with the passing of our father.
While we knew that we needed to go to California and be with our family, some of us were nervous seeing as how it had been twenty years since our families had been together. The second we pulled up to the Huerta house, a calm and healing feeling came over us. Memories flooded our thoughts of when we would visit as children. The four of us were thankful that we weren't at the mercy of our father's planning that inevitably landed us at their doorstep at four a.m. We didn't have to sleep in the car until a more acceptable time to wake the family came!
We shuffled up to the door after our sleepless fourteen hour trip. We were greeted by a foreign face who appeared to be as unsure as we were. A teeneager looking disheveled with an extreme case of bedhead opened the door, took one look at us (who all looked about as good as he did) and said, "Uhhh Grandma??" Little did we know at that time, he was the eldest of our cousin Tiffany's children. He had been awake for countless hours also, creating a collage of memories that touched everyone who loved Uncle Homero.
The second we saw Aunt Karen, it felt like we had all been together just yesterday. Seeing the cousins and new members of the Huerta family seemed so familiar and comfortable.
The weekend flew by with tons of emotion. There were great times of laughter and remebering followed by many teary moments and even some moments when we were really unsure of what kind of emotion was coming out. The whole time was so great because we were able to reconnect and remaniss.
The most important thing that came out of the experience was the way we all felt whole again and the feelings of grief and loss have been replaced by comfort and a feeling of closure for our own father's death. It also gave us hope to know that the stories still live on outside of the four of us.
"Well, other than that Miss Lincoln, how are things in Dallas?"
