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The Life and Death-at-Home of an Ordinary Person |
| Section: CULTURE / CROSSROADS |
| Author: Peter Gorman |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 1/1/2005 |
| Size: 6,289 Words, 34,436 Characters |
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Lydia Cahuaza was no one you've ever heard of. She was just an ordinary person. Mother of six, grandmother of 16. She was my mother-in-law and she died last Spring in my home at 60, surrounded by family. Her life was fascinating, her death joyful, if that's really possible.
Lydia was born in Iquitos, Peru, the jungle city at the headwaters of the Amazon. There are no roads in or out of Iquitos, only planes--rare in her youth--and boats. I used to joke with her that she was a wild Amazon Indian, and she'd snap back that her mother wore shoes, proof of civilization, but a phrase exclusive to Indigenous in the area whose grandparents were enslaved by rubber barons at the turn of the century and taught city ways.
I met her 12 years ago. At the time, I'd been working the Iquitos area of t...
. . .
...ydia could have a better sendoff at home than elsewhere. She was what Lydia needed and what we needed.
The grief my children feel, the grief Chepa and her sisters feel, will take some time to even fully surface. The empty spot in their lives will hurt but help them grow.
Lydia's death means little to the world. She was just an ordinary person. Special to us, no one else. We miss her.
(812 of 34,436 characters)
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