To My Dearest Dominican

To my dearest Dominican,

What can I say? As I sit in the airport preparing to leave you, the words of farewell seem slow in coming. I don't have the words to give you the good-bye you deserve, nor the time to tell you what you mean to me. 

You were my first love. It was love at first sight, even. I didn't believe in that until I stepped out into the warm tropical sun for the first time and looked with bubbling anticipation at my future home. For the next few years it was like honeymoon bliss, visiting you and delighting in all the sounds, sights, and people. You have so much to offer.

Though it was hard, I'm so glad the honeymoon ended. The more time I spent with you the more I learned; I saw the good, the bad, the ugly, and the unbelievably beautiful. You broke my heart many times and we both hurt each other without meaning to. But we stuck with it, we grew and we compromised, and now I can't imagine my life without you. The initial excitement settled into a steady, deeper love, and we lived life that way for a time.

And now it's time to be apart; maybe for a short time, maybe for longer. But you have left me with many fond memories to think back on when I am missing you. 

-I will miss the noises: the children shouting right outside my window, the store blasting music down the street, the endless stream of trucks rumbling by and honking their horns. How will I learn to sleep again in the silence?

-I will miss the language, with its fast-paced story-telling and beautiful phrases. And the yelling. So much yelling.

-I will miss the food. But not just the food, the people who were helping me make it. Empanada night won't be the same without my crew crowding in my little kitchen.

-I will miss the ride to work, when I got to sit and watch the endless sugar cane fields pass by and wonder how a place could be so beautiful.

-But mostly I will miss my friends, who made each day an adventure. My friends, who drove me to the brink of madness and then back again in a matter of seconds. My friends, who will never know how much they mean to me or how much of an impact they made on my life. I hope I have been able to reciprocate even half of the love and hospitality that they have shown me.


And so, my dearest Dominican, I want to thank you for the special part you have played in my life. I know your part isn't over yet; in fact, it's just beginning. But all good-byes are hard, and this one is no different. 

When I start to miss you I have many memories to take me back, but this one is my favorite: it's all of those times when I would be at the play (sports field). The girls would be in the middle of a soccer game and they would be talking, fighting, laughing. I would take a break from the organized chaos to look around me. Behind me the boys would be in the middle of a basketball game on the new court, and little kids would be rolling tires and kicking around deflated balls right beside it. Just beyond that the sugar cane in the field would be swaying gently in the early evening breeze, and everything would look golden as the sun kissed the tops of the distant mountains and prepared to set on another day. The sky would be impossibly clear with the most brilliant colors I could imagine. In those short moments everything felt as it should be, and I would wonder if life could get any better than this. 

That is how I think of you, my dearest Dominican, and that is how I will remember you until we are together again. 

Until then.

Forever yours,

Jessica