The way we were - Thank you, Chile

03.08.2009

After nine years in Chile, Fr Hornsey has been assigned to the new Columban mission in Brazil.

Como Estas, Padre? How many times over the last nine years has that been the morning, afternoon and evening greeting! How are you? It's a dangerous question and for years my answer has been, great, just great.  And how do you feel to be leaving Chile after these years here with us?  Me voy con pena - I go with sadness.

It's hard to say what nine years in Chile means to someone who comes from another country to live here, because it has meant everything. It has been all those fiestas, the celebrations of people who love to share joyfully together, and so often have little left to be happy about. No worthwhile jobs, no proper holidays, no immediate future. And yet there has been all the abrazos, the greetings, the little gifts, the talking, the music and the dancing.

The being there when guns were lined up on us; the being there when Marcia was dying of cancer and her children sleeping in the same room and bed; the being there when they pitched in the little they had to make a meal and give me the best plate, and then eating it with pride.

And all the Ximenas and Juans and Manuels and Anas, who never asked for anything but a little love.  And all the times when they gave us so much and we had so little to offer, nothing more than the Word.  But somehow it must have helped someone, because they say they are eternally grateful and you wonder why, and ask what you did.

And you remember all the Jorges and Carmens and Pablos and Marias, and the earthquake victims in tents outside broken homes who can still joke and survive, and will all get together next Saturday for a little fiesta for a baptism or birthday or anything.

And the time we tried to get Willy out of gaol, and when Rosa was in hospital, and when Patty's brother drowned. And for a moment or a year or a decade, we were there. And now we won't be. It leaves me sad, because I wonder if I will ever find it again - this humanness, this joy and suffering and love and humour.

But it's time to pack a bag and say goodbye to Ximena and Juan and Manuel and Ana, and say thanks for all you've given me. Maybe we'll meet again, and anyway we'll always write.

So thank you, Chile. Brazil might be better or worse, but it won't be the same.

- Taken from The Far East, December 1985.