Day 37 – Friday, August 2, 2013

Today we got an early start and were on the road by 6:30 AM, as scheduled. We were heading for our overnight stop of Mata Verde.

We got to witness a beautiful sunrise over the Gulf of Mexico.

Shortly thereafter, we had a text message from Julie’s brother letting us know that Julie’s mom had passed away. Vera had fought a long hard battle with cancer and her suffering is now over.

A note from Quentin puts it this way;

“Our sweet lady has gone to be with her hubby. She will be missed so much. The two of them have left such a large hole in our lives. I guess it is our job to fill it and patch it with love, memories and life with the loved ones we can still hug. Mom followed dad’s example of getting some good sleep these past few days. She fought hard for so long. I think we all got to soak up a few more of those precious smiles, we can’t ask for any more than that.” Quentin Holmes

We will miss you Vera. No one could ask for a better mother-in-law.

We continued our travels with the group. We travelled 400 km today to a PEMEX station and camped beside the federal policia detachment. Their police vehicle was right next to our camper. The national army carrying their semi-automatic rifles also stopped by and through sign language mostly, asked to borrow my water hose? So am I now an official military supplier of choice? Is this a sole source contract? We’ll see, I guess.

We made arrangements to fly Julie to Toronto on Sunday, August 4^th from Tapachula, MX. She catches a flight from Tapachula, MX at 5:45 PM and after a layover in Mexico City of about 4 hours, she will arrive in Toronto, ON at 5:35 AM the next morning. Our tentative plan will be to have Julie rejoin the trek a week or so after that. We are thinking we will be near San Salvador in El Salvador and Julie can rejoin us there.

…all our thoughts are with family during this time but we also hope to keep posting as much as possible throughout the trip, …the saddened muleskinner and his sidekick

Julie notes “There have been many tears across Mexico today. Even Mother Nature was saddened and gave us our first rain during this part of the trip. By coincidence, yesterday I had the following conversation with the wise Wally Wally Bang Bang. I will leave you with that.”

“We were talking about age and Wally says ‘My birthday is Jan. 21^st.’ I told him that that was the same day as my mom’s birthday. He looked around and said ‘Where is your mom?’ I told him she lived far away up in Canada. Wally asked ‘Do you miss her?’ And I said ‘Yes, sometimes you might see me cry because I miss her a lot.’ Wally says earnestly ‘You don’t need to cry Miss Julie. You have Mr. Brad to give you hugs and make you feel better. That is what my mom does to me.”

“I am still crying but I know I have Mr. Brad and a wonderful family that are crying along with me and even though we are not traditionally huggers, we are getting pretty good at it. Miss you Mom! You and dad behave up there on your first day in heaven together.”