This morning I caught a bus to the capital city of San José. Tomorrow night, the United States men's national team plays here against Costa Rica in an important World Cup Qualifying match. I've got some other business to attend to tomorrow morning, so I chose to come a little early. I'm so glad I did.
The only two buses that go directly to San José from my site leave at 3:30 in the ever-loving morning and 2:00 in the afternoon. The latter arrives around 8:30PM in one of San José's many 'red zones,' so it's never a great idea to take that one. I chose to delay a little bit and took the 7:30AM bus to Liberia, and then I grabbed the 10:00AM direct route to San Jose.
As I stowed my bag beneath the hulking monstrosity of a bus out of Liberia and climbed the stairs, I checked my ticket to find out where I'd be sitting for this little jaunt. Seat number 51. Hmm. A window seat. Well, okay. I'm not the biggest fan of window seats, but at least it's the very last row, so I can lean my seat back more than normal. I squeezed into the last row and shifted over to the window seat, placing my backpack down between my legs in anticipation of a full house. I reached down to grab my headphones, and, the moment I looked up I was met with a sight that - to be perfectly and ashamedly honest - I wasn't happy about. There before me, storing his tattered coat and Dora the Explorer backpack in the overhead area, stood a gentleman easily into his sixties in a weathered and stained button-down, a ragged pair of slacks, and a filthy, decrepit pair of ancient penny loafers.
Settling into his coveted aisle seat, he turned to me and flashed a smile that I was not expecting. He had some of the whitest, straightest teeth I've seen on a Tico since I got here in February. He extended his hand, greeting me and saying, "Hola, my name is José. How are you today?" in some of the cleanest, purest English I've heard from a native. It took me a moment to collect my thoughts, what with all the differing facts floating around in front of me. Here was this man who appeared to have just gotten off the back of the truck after a full day of work in the field, and yet his teeth were as perfect as his command of the English language (or at least basic greetings). I was dumbfounded.
"Uh... excuse me," I uttered, "Hello, José! It's nice to meet you. My name is Dakota. I'm well, thank you. How are you?" I shook his calloused, leathery hand. His grip was firm, as one might expect from such a character. He maintained eye contact with me, with his eyes peering into mine beneath the edge of his wide-brim hat. After providing a firm handshake and a hearty report on his day to that point, he leaned his seat back, took a deep breath and set his hat down on his knee. As he ran his wrinkled fingers through his hair, a coy smile crept over his face.
He looked over in my direction and promptly asked if I was married. (NOTE: Costa Ricans are very open and forward. I have been asked this and other rather forward questions by complete strangers many, many times) I took off my headphones and smiled, shaking my head to signal in the negative. He looked genuinely sad at my response, so I explained that I'm currently serving in the Peace Corps and that it doesn't lend itself to being married or getting married during the process blah blah blah. He said he understood, and there was a brief pause. I could tell he was asking for a reason, so I channeled my inner Tingo (For those of you playing at home, that's a cross between Tico and Gringo, the names for a Costa Rican and a US citizen in-country, respectively) and asked him if he was married. Another long, deep sigh. He look at me, and I watched as his eyes welled up with tears and his mood changed rapidly. "I was. A long, long time ago. Still am, thank God."
Okay. There go my reading plans for this trip. Somehow I could tell this was gonna be one hell of a story, and I was legitimately interested. I took out my headphones, rolled them up, and stored them in my backpack so as to demonstrate to my new friend that he was working with my full attention. Then José went on to tell me one of the most riveting, heartbreaking, yet hopeful stories I've ever heard someone tell.
I'm going to do my best to share it with you.
Years ago, José worked for his father-in-law on a farm in Guanacaste, the northwestern province in Costa Rica. He lived with his wife, Lilian, in a house on the farm's property. In exchange for a place to live and a small allowance for basic necessities, José worked from sunrise to sunset six days a week, performing all kinds of maintenance on his father-in-law's farm. However, after years of failed crops and smaller and smaller returns, the entire operation came to a sudden and tragic halt. Lilian's father decided to sell his property - all of it - meaning José was out of a job and, unfortunately, a home as well.
In the wake of this rough turn of events, José and Lilian decided that it was best for him to travel to the U.S. to try and find a job and, hopefully, earn enough to move Lilian up there with him and finally start a family. In the meantime, Lilian would stay behind and help around the house with whatever the next step was in the lives of her parents, waiting until José sent back for her. Eventually connecting with a construction company in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, José hit the ground running and found himself way ahead of schedule. Then came the unthinkable.
In a letter from his beloved Lilian, he read the horrible news of a car accident that she'd been involved in. Apparently on an unusually rainy summer day, Lilian's father lost control of their vehicle and crossed the median, plowing into an oncoming truck at a high enough speed to eject both her and her parents onto the highway. Her father was killed instantly, and she and her mother were taken to the emergency room. Her mother passed away that same night. Lilian would be paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of her life.
As José recounted this part of the story, tears rolled down his face freely, and I put my hand on this stranger's shoulder in some attempt to bridge the cultural gap. He apologized profusely, and I could only muster "Tranquilo, tranquilo. Está bien, hermano." He gathered himself and continued.
Upon receiving the dreadful news, he panicked. He was completely helpless to be there for his wife in the single greatest moment of need she could endure, and he felt horrible. He tried to make arrangements to return immediately, but he had trouble with his visa. The Costa Rican government, for reasons unknown to José, was claiming that he was unable to re-enter the country with his current papers.
He was on an island of despair and had no way to get off of it. He wrote to Lilian incessantly, as often as he could (this was, of course, before the days of emails and text messages), trying his best to encourage her and keep her spirits high as he sorted out the issues with his return to Costa Rica. Despite his efforts to reach out, he never heard back from her. Not one letter. Fearing the worst, he frantically tried to contact anyone and everyone who might know her status, but it was all for naught. No one knew anything. It was as though she had disappeared.
After seven months of waiting in despair, the Costa Rican government finally allowed José to re-enter. As he made his return trip plans, he let his employer know of his impending departure. To his dismay, his boss informed José that he would be forced to fill José's position if he chose to leave. Without a second thought, José chose to continue on back to Costa Rica. He purchased his flight, boarded the plane, and landed in Alajuela. Almost an entire year had passed since he left Costa Rica with hope and opportunity, only to return home in the wake of a tragedy with no clue where to find the love of his life.
Upon arriving back in Guanacaste, José followed up with many of the same individuals he'd reached out to from the U.S., but there was no news of Lilian's status nor her whereabouts. He described the feeling he had at the time as that of being in a field at midnight with no light and eyes shut. "I had no way to know where I was, what direction to go, or what to do. I was completely alone."
José then described his years of alcoholism and drug addiction, leading to a short stint in prison and a brief stay in a clinic. Once he was clean and able to begin coping with his heartbreaking loss, he decided the only thing that made sense was to continue with his previous plan. He arranged for a loan through a friend he made during his clinic stay, and purchased airfare back to Texas to search for another job in construction.
As had happened before, José found himself very fortunate to land a job with decent pay, and he was back on his feet in no time. After a few months of hard labor, he decided to invest his time in something else, and he began taking night classes at a local high school offering English as a Second Language to the numerous members of the working class Latino community. It turns out, English came easy to José (I jokingly mentioned I wish his language came as easily to me as mine did to him, to which he flashed his brilliant smile and laughed aloud), and he became fluent in a few short months. Time flew by, and José continued working until he was able to secure his papers and decided to stay in the U.S. indefinitely.
You couldn't imagine the smile on my face as I listened to his account of the successes José worked so hard to achieve in those tough times. The months turned into years, and he eventually bought a small house in the suburbs, and accepted a promotion to foreman. He began to lead a crew on smaller jobs in downtown Dallas, and things were going wonderfully. He was happy with his work and proud to be a homeowner in the United States. He chose, however, to remain single, holding out hope that one day he would someday be reunited with his love, Lilian.
I had a feeling, at this point in his story, that something was about to change again, and, unfortunately, I was right. At the end of 2015, José was on his way home from work and arrived to find his home up in flames. He still has no idea what the cause might have been, but it was almost completely lost. The fire department was unable to salvage much of anything. The following day, as José walked among the wet ashes of his hard-earned home, he heard a familiar voice from out by the road. It was his mailman, whom José had developed a friendship with. He was astonished to see the horrible scene, and he got out of his truck to comfort José. After a few moments of consoling José, the mailman announced that he would need to get back to work. José thanked him for his time and kind words, but, just as the mailman was about to pull away, he remembered that he had a letter for José. Surprised, since he never received much other than bills and typical junk mail, José said he sprinted to the mail truck to take the letter from the mailman's hand.
The next part is a little unbelievable, but I stared at José's face and listened all the same. The letter was from Lilian. She had, after some 25-30 years (the dates were a bit fuzzy for José), finally tracked him down through some friends who had also moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. They remembered having seen José's name in an ad in the paper, and put Lilian in touch with his boss. Small world.
Instead of calling, Lilian explained in the letter that she preferred to write down the story of what had happened in order to control her emotions. After the accident, she woke up a few days later in the hospital, realized what had happened, wrote the letter to José, fell into a deep state of depression, and was eventually admitted to a mental hospital on San José. Unknown to José, she spent years there going through all forms of counseling as well as physical therapy to acclimate to her new physical limitations.
Because of the informal nature of their marriage in rural Guanacaste, there was no official record stating that Lilian was, in fact, the wife of José. Therefore, when José returned after the accident, there was no way for him to know or for the Costa Rican government's record to show where Lilian had been moved to. She, in the meantime, worked hard to overcome the mental trauma that followed the accident, and eventually moved back to her small town in Guanacaste years later. Because of the nature of José's work back then, his address was something of a moving target, and Lilian was simply unable to locate him.
At the end of the letter, after telling her side of the story, she closed by saying that she still loved him and wanted to be with him, as long as he would still have her in her broken state. (I may or may not have been leaking from the eyeballs as I listened to that part) José, wiping tears from his own eyes, explained to me how, in the wake of losing everything in the fire, he lived on the streets for months as he continued to work, saving every penny he didn't spend on food and shelter for his return flight. Today, José was on his way to San José from the Liberia airport, and he was heading for Lilian's aunt's house outside of Heredia.
I've been in the presence of some incredible and awe-inspiring people in my life. I've learned from wise, deep people. I've felt the raw emotion from some of the most heartfelt souls I could ever have the pleasure of meeting. Taking nothing away from them, the man that sat next to me on the bus today, although ragged and tired, has the biggest, strongest heart of any human being I think I've ever met in my entire life.
I felt completely wrecked inside. Just a few short hours earlier, at first glance of José, I made an entirely incorrect judgment call. There I sat, throwing out my embarrassingly shallow opinion of this man, and I was a fool to do so. Even now, as I sit down and write this out, I'm a little overwhelmed with emotion. I feel like I don't deserve to have heard this man's story.
José gathered his backpack and coat from the overhead storage area, and we waited next to one another on the curb as the driver unloaded each bag from underneath. I collected my bag, waited for José to get his, then turned to face him. His face was so bright, despite years upon years of doubt and defeat. He stood upright with his shoulders back. I stuck my hand out to say goodbye, but José set his bag down and - a bit to my surprise - threw both arms around my midsection and pulled me in for the best bro-hug I've ever had in my life. I thanked him for sharing his story with me, and he, still wiping tears, said "You are welcome. I hope that you find love in your life as I have found it in mine." With that, José gathered his things and walked away. He didn't ask for money, didn't ask if I'd check on him, none of that. He was kind enough to share his story with a stranger - a Gringo, at that - and go on about his way in the hopes of reuniting with Lilian.
Based on what little information I have in regards to travel times and Costa Rican geography, I'm guessing by now José has found his beautiful Lilian. I cannot fathom the emotion that's being shared in these moments. Years upon years and miles beyond miles of separation, finally together again after so much pain and hurt.
Odds are good that I'll never see him again, but I will never, ever forget that man. And the moral of the story? Hell if I know. I started this day thinking I had a good idea of how it would go, but here I sit with a deepened understanding of determination, belief, faith, and love. José's words, uttered mere hours ago, are still resonating in my mind and in my heart. I hope I find love in my life as he has found in his. I hope we all can and do.
Here's to you and your beautiful bride, José, wherever you are. Thank you for sharing.
Love y'all.
