Title: Seeking Saúl
Description: "We were last together in public as a family when the Colombian soccer team squared off against David Beckham's English squad at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. My husband, Saúl, sang along to the Colombian national anthem. "Good germinates in the furrows of pain," Saúl whispered from his wheelchair, his formerly athletic body both shrunken and swollen, as a few tears coursed down his high cheekbones. A few days later, my beloved husband died of a rare and rapacious cancer, leaving me with our two young boys and no idea how to go it alone or keep Saúl alive in their memory. Saúl was dedicated to his career as an administrator for the Mennonite church in the United States. But he was always fiercely devoted to his homeland and his family, the majority of whom still lived on or near the family farm down in South America. After discovering a cache of letters that Saúl had written about his childhood when he was first diagnosed with cancer, I thought of a way to celebrate Saúl's life - and to transform our own. We left our comfortable, middle-class existence in Pennsylvania to spend a year living near Saúl's boyhood home in La Mesa, Colombia. I wanted my boys to understand their father better by experiencing life the way he experienced it at their age; I wanted my sons to walk in their father's footsteps. What followed was a momentous year--filled with the unexpected--during which we struggled to adapt to new schools and a new way of life"--Publisher's description.
Subjects: Childhood and youth, Homes and haunts, Travel, Mennonites, Biography, Social life and customs, Description and travel, Homes, Manners and customs
Places: Colombia
People: Saul Murcia (1955-2005), Rebecca Thatcher Murcia (1962-)