Kimani's Blessing

Simara on Kimani's bench 

My grandson Kimani was never able to speak or sign the word bendición, one of the first words learned by any Venezuelan child to ask for an elder’s blessing. It is a verbal ritual repeated dozens of times daily in all Venezuelan homes. Toddlers call out “cion!” and babies are taught to clasp their palms together when greeting or leaving a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or family friend. A warm array of blessings then ensues.

Kimani came into the world a year ago with a full head of black curls, rosebud lips, a perfect tiny nose and gentle eyes that were closed forever. I knew that he would never be able to ask for my bendición with words or gestures, but as I held him silently, falling forever in love, I knew that he was asking me for my blessing for his sacred journey and that he was giving me his bendición for the rest of my own life’s journey.

A beautiful Jewish mourning custom – not my faith tradition but one I respectfully borrow - is to grant an informal year-long special status to anyone who loses someone significant allowing them space and time for the demanding work of grief. I am grateful to all of you, my community of friends, who have allowed me this year to just be together with famiy and honor Kimani. In this year I have produced nothing, unless you count the numbers of fish caught by Ollie after I hooked his line, or the cups of chamomile tea shared with Simara on spa evenings, or the kilometers clocked with Junie on bike or scooter or in the pool.

After this healing year I am now back in Venezuela. Returning was as convoluted as leaving, catching (barely) the only approved flight into the country – via Istanbul of all places. I’ve been back now a month, communing intensely with my adopted land and people.

In my suitcase I brought two jars of peanut butter, a jar of Trader Joe’s steel cut oats, a year supply of sunscreen, and Kimani’s bendición. Here, in this upside down world of Venezuela – a nation that went from being Latin America’s richest nation to its poorest in a flash, an upside down blessing from grandson to grandmother seems to match. His blessing isn’t one of luck (as my recent flight experiences prove). Kimani’s bendición is a simply a pair of magical glasses that he passes to me daily. Shortly before the dawn, after feeding the chickens and upon sitting down to a cup of coffee on my wide front porch, Kimani hands them over to me. Here are your glasses Nana, put them on.

Morning view from my porch

And they begin to work their magic.

To begin with, everything is sharper. The outline of the Fumarola mountain lit by the rising sun before me, the wings of the hummingbird drinking the lavender in my garden. Everything is more vibrant. Were the apamate flowers really that pink and yellow before? Everything is more alive: The determined ant crawling at my feet, the vulture spreading its enormous wings at the top of the chio tree, gathering energy from the sun. Everything is more tender. Did baby chicks always make me cry as they hatch? Everything is more exquisite. Since when does eating a mango from my tree invoke the concept of heaven?

Bebe, Yelimar and Esperanza

Not only do these glasses sharpen the view, they somehow reveal what is hidden. Like when I look at Bebe. One of a tens of thousands of Venezuelan rural day laborers who make $1 a day in the fields, he is a footnote in Venezuela’s crisis. But with Kimani’s glasses I suddenly see the look in Bebe’s eyes as he holds his small daughter in one arm and sweeps the other to show me the mountain he leveled to build a pig pen for the soon-to-be-born piglets. I look as he reaches to pet his pregnant sow, and I see what he sees: hallacas for the holiday season, a new pair of socks for Yeiberlin, a tiny slice of dignity.

Returning at dusk I almost collide into fourteen-year-old Heiner flying down our dirt road on a contraption made of several discarded bike parts lashed together. He is heading to town to barter a small bag of coffee beans for medicine for his asthmatic sister. With his dad in Ecuador it has fallen to him to figure these situations out. I don’t want to detain him, as shops close early because of electrical outages. But he wants to talk: Lisa, we need to meet early this week to organize for el Dia de la Semilla. In his serious eyes I see a fierce determination and strength. Others might only see the strabismus that have caused him a lifetime of bullying. But, I seethe conviction of the leader who is the real Heiner.

Ledys, Lisa and Dinoskar

Later that evening Dinoskar drops by and we pick carrots and green onions and sweet potatoes and chop them into a simple dinner with the help of some wild oregano. Dino is half my age but her life’s story is twice as long. With her pixie hair cut and tiny frame she looks so fragile, as though the wind of the Fumarola could sweep her away at any minute. But as she speaks of each of the kids in our group, with such love and insight and shares her multiple efforts to get them food, medicine, seeds, she grows before me into a giant. Through Kimani’s glasses I see this heroine of Venezuela today. How lucky I am to be her friend.

As night falls Ledys and I settle again onto the wide veranda. After taking turns at strumming the cuatro, we ask one another the same question we ask each night: que recoges del dia? What do you take away from the day?

I share the day’s insights through Kimani’s glasses: Bebe’s dreams, Heiner’s determination, Dino’s heart. The stars begin to come out one by one, lighting up the night sky, illuminating the massive mountains before us. Having no electricity can also be a gift. This dark Venezuelan night also has so many shining stars. Maybe that’s what Kimani’s brief foray into our physical world was all about. An eternal and luminous presence allowing us to see and feel and live each breath that he could not take. Bendiciones Kimani. Dame tu bendición.