I love you, Tia Geralda!

Tia Geralda and me, 2004

Today I would like to honor a very important woman in my life who passed way this week in Brazil.
She is my Tia Geralda!
(Tia means aunt in Portuguese). We lived near each other my entire childhood and I have the opportunity to enjoy her company for many and many years. I will never forget the afternoons that I spent at her house, drinking the warm and fresh coffee that she made every single day. Just the 2 of us!! We talked a lot.

I knew for sure that she loved me, and she knew for sure that I loved her. This great love put as together even when I started living abroad. By the way, one day she told my mother that she was afraid to die without talking to me again…
Wow, that was something. I felt more special that ever, when I found it out!

She was 92 to 93 years old. Once she lost her memory, because she was taking a very strong medicine. She even did not recognize her only son. Well, my mother visited her and she did not recognize my mother either, but she asked if she knew me, because she missed me. How sweet is that? I cried a river when my mother told me that.

About 5 years ago, I got a tape by mail from my nephew’s birthday’s party and many of my relatives sent me some messages. When they asked Tia Geralda to say something to me, she looked at the camera and said: “Leandra, que saudade... eu te amo!", "I miss you very much... I love you!”

Tia Geralda was a happy, brave, funny and out going woman. She became a widow in her 30s, with 2 daughters and a son and she never gave up. She never had self-pity or something like that. She was a reference for me, for us.

Oh my god, I really love that petite woman and I will love her for all the eternity.

Tia Geralda thanks for being part of my life. I was a privileged to come to this world as your second niece. In fact, she was my mother’s aunt.
Thanks for the Saint John's parties that made my life so colorful, thanks for all cups of coffee we have drank together while chatting, thanks for those wonderful memories you gave me, thanks for asking all of us if we were part of your family because we were beautiful as you were, thanks for all “pao de queijo” you made, thanks for being you all the time!

I know that all the people we love and have made this travel already, prepared a huge reception party for you in heaven. Please say hello to everybody, specially my dad, grandma Cotinha and to Marcinha for me, ok!

Dear aunt, I will never forget you! Never! I will love you forever and ever...
Tia Geralda, que saudade... eu te amo!
"Aunt Geralda, I miss you very much... I love you!”