We dug the hole and laid the tree gently in. With our bare hands Dad and I firmed the soil around it. I remember my Dad next to me. We placed it in the midst of a land that had experienced tremendous pain, the land of my late-aunt, Elenita. Her first born died within weeks of being born, then her second-born, Maria Elena, a graduate of Boston College and Babson was diagnosed with cancer and subsequently passed away. Maria Elena had been building playgrounds in eastern Europe with the non-profit organization championed by President James Carter, Habitat for Humanity. This was in the years after the Chernobyl nuclear fallout. Her work with the organization was not far from it. The whole family went through the saga of her long and drawn-out fight and death. It utterly brought us all to the ground in a gut-wrenching, yet beautiful way. There where constant communal prayers that involved Elenita’s and Maria Elena’s friends, special family dinners, and constant visits. ...
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