I suppose that I will always be – if not always feel like – a New Yorker. My hometown of East Meadow was right next door to famous Levittown. After WWII, returning vets heard the siren songs of suburban living, and Levittown sang loud and proud.

Not quite sure where East Meadow fits in the swift rise of suburbia, but it mostly likely knew the songs that were in the air.

In 1964, Wilfredo and Carmen purchased a small, two story Cape Cod style home on a corner lot in East Meadow. I’ve always loved the name of our street: Wilson Lane. It has a noble sound befitting my mom and dad. They were poor, could hardly speak English, and were uneducated. Their royalty was in their wisdom, their tenacity and, in full measure, their love.

And you would need love to survive the “dawning of the age of Aquarius” in East Meadow, located in Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York State. Ironically, we were a little island of Puerto Ricans in an ocean of Italian, Irish, and Jewish families. And it was wonderful. I mean, where else could you go to school with Carmine Paradisio – is that a name, or is that a name?! – and then, as a high school student, sing in musicals with members of the local Jewish synagogue. I also grew up with the long, cold shadows of the normalization of hatred and racism.

And about that, I will say this: it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that it was difficult for my mom and my dad to live in that white suburban community. I’ll spare you the details of some of the stories, suffice it to say that, by some, we were not welcome. So much so that messages in the form of dog excrement being tossed in the yard was just one of the ways the turbulence of the times reached our corner lot. My mom and dad were silent about it, as far as I can recall. To this day, I truly believe they were teaching me important lessons. Don’t be a person who hates, even if you feel you have every reason to hate. Don’t order your life around those who have struggles in their hearts. Be a person of peace on a small little island in East Meadow in an ocean of turmoil. Peace would also need to make room for suffering, loss, and sorrow on that island. As much as we all want to live and experience life, this life can take so much from us that, even if we are still breathing, it feels like there is no reason to.

Rosalito was her name. Their firstborn. She lived for a few days. My mom mourned her until her last day. This event was the seed of much of my formation, but that’s a story that continues to unfold.

Which, of course, brings us to the present. My mom passed away in 2023 at the age of 97. She passed in the safety of her corner house… her little island in an ocean of love: my dad.

He still lives in that house and, even though my story is being told on the backlot of the Midwest, far from the Atlantic shore I love – more on that later – I have been returning home to be with my family almost every year for…well… 39+ years. And, following the well worn path of my childhood, those visits often included an eastbound trip on the Southern State Parkway to visit Rosalito.

I find that some childhood memories can show up for a visit in vivid, 3-D, surround sound. I find myself taking in the mysteriously beautiful sound of crunching autumn leaves as we brush them from around her tombstone. I can still feel my body sigh in relief as the cold water from a nearby hose washed away the unbearable heat and humidity of a Long Island summer. I can still smell the fresh, winter air as I huddled in my coat while my mom and dad whispered prayers and shed their tears. Home, family, and our little island in East Meadow will, for me, always be associated with death. And that is not a bad thing. It just is.

On this particular visit, a rainy, cold, late May welcomed me back home. Thankfully, a summer like early June won a toss of weather fronts with May. I set aside more than two weeks to be with my dad. We spent a day heading out to the southern tip of Long Island to greet the lighthouse at Montauk Point. A 3 ½ order lens (it sounds like I know what I’m talking about, but I don’t) built in 1902 was recently restored to the tippy top of that lighthouse. In a culture that places unnecessary value on new and improved, it’s comforting to realize that old and traditional can still guide and lead sojourners to light and safety.
Of course, we visited Rosalito and Carmen. My mom was finally resting with my sister. We cleared out weeds, took out the artificial flowers that signaled care and love all through winter, and planted fresh, impossibly red flowers. If my mom could speak, she would tell me what the flowers were.

Though uneducated, she was a brilliant “botanist” who could revive any withered leaf, twig or petal and, as if she named each and every one herself, would tell you the name of just about any flower. God created a unique kind of nurturing spirit within her and I think losing her first child only deepened her longing to give and sustain life. Our house was a greenhouse. Green, colorful life was everywhere. And now, my dad made sure that color and life adorned the resting place of his little girl and his bride of over 60 years.

Any pilgrimage back east must include multiple mini-pilgrimages to the southern shores of Long Island. Specifically, Jones Beach.

Like the faithful ostinato from Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, this State Park has always been a part of me. Whether it’s a frigid, windswept winter seascape, or the end of a summer day showing off with a dazzling display of clouds and shafts of light shooting into space, or the slow motion blending and mixing of sunrise colors that Crayola never dreamed existed, this shore has been a place for reflection, prayer, worship and peace. And, every now and then, I hear and see the rocks cry out and tell of a Savior alive in this world.

I enjoyed a mid-morning stroll with my dad along the 2-mile long boardwalk. I marvel at his endurance and determination as he struggles to maintain balance and manage pain while he walks on his two artificial knees.

During a quiet, pre-dawn stroll on the shore, as the sun began to work on its morning art project, I am trying to figure out a way to take the colors right out of the sky and put them in my backpack.

I am grateful for my family…

for loss and sorrow…

for the Man of Sorrows…

for morning colors, accompanied by salty air…

for lilting, calming ocean waves…