Clap When You Land(52)

Fifty-Nine Days After


The night before we leave DR

we sit around the table, the four of us

eating toasted cassava & butter.

Vira Lata sits at Tía’s heel, the way he has since the night at the beach.

Mami says she thinks it would be good if when we get back home we return to the counseling sessions.

& I know it has scared her how big the emotions

of loss have weighed on our shoulders.

Enough for me to disobey her in a way I never have.

Enough for her to forget

the kind of woman she once was.

Enough for Camino to thrust herself into unleashed danger.

Tía does not say much,

but she cleans crumbs

from the corner of Camino’s mouth & she butters a piece of cassava that she passes to me

like she has hand-fed me my whole life.





Sixty Days After


At the airport

Tía does not cry.

But I cannot stop crying.

I am a small child again an ocean a big loss of stream.

But Tía, as Tía has always been, is mountainous in her small stature.

& it’s all I need: for her to be an immovable rock, to know she will still be here when I decide to come back.

Before I turn from her she touches the string of beads between her breasts & then taps her fingers to my own heart.

The pulse of her heart matching my own; a rhythm neither time nor oceans can make offbeat.

& I know she is saying she is with me & so are the Saints.

She stands in the terminal until I walk through security.

Gives me a nod.

& I see her mouth: “Que Dios te bendiga, mi’ja.”

I stop moving. How can I leave her?

She seems so small alone.

She is my home. I already miss her.

She shakes her head,

as if she can read my thoughts, she shoos me with her hands.

Onward. Always onward.

I blow her a kiss

across the linoleum, & whisper blessings under my breath, divide a piece of God from my heart

for her to carry.

I know she does the same for me.





As the plane from DR

begins down the runway I reach for Camino’s hand.

She has her head pushed into the backrest, her eyes clenched, mouthing prayers.

But our fingers intertwine & don’t let go until the pilot hops on the loudspeaker.

He assures us the flight path is clear.

Tells us to enjoy the beverage service.

My heart stops beating quite so hard.

Camino opens her eyes,

staring at the water

endless & blue beneath us.

I tell her that when we land some people on the plane might clap.

She turns to me with an eyebrow raised.

I imagine it’s kind of giving thanks.

Of all the ways it could end it ends not with us in the sky or the water, but together

on solid earth

safely grounded.





Author’s Note


MY FIRST MEMORY OF VISITING THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC IS ALSO my first memory of being on a flight. I was taken to visit my mother’s family, many of whom I had met only once when I was six months old, and none of whom now, at eight years old, I had any memories of. I was escorted on my flight by a neighbor, Do?a Reina, and while I was excited, I was also so nervous, having no family I was familiar with nearby. My mother dressed me formally: a scratchy tweedlike dress and a big hat with a sunflower around the brim. This was a big deal. The flight itself scared me: Why were we in the air so long? If I slept, would they forget to collect me from the plane? What would happen if the whole thing fell?

My favorite moment was when the plane landed and the other passengers clapped. Instinctively I joined them. Even if the exact performance we were applauding was unclear, it was understood; it was praise for a higher being for allowing us to arrive safely, as a reaction to the pilot’s performance, applause for ourselves at having finally returned—I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now, the exact reason for that spontaneous reaction, but I know I was enamored with the many ways Dominicans celebrate touching down onto our island.

When I was thirteen years old, two months and one day after September 11, 2001, flight AA587 crashed to the ground in Queens, New York. It was on its way to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Two hundred sixty people, plus five people on the ground, died. More than 90 percent of the passengers were of Dominican descent. Many were returning home. It completely rocked the New York Dominican community. It is the second-deadliest aviation crash in United States history.

There was so much confusion around the November crash; I remember the special mass held at church, the bewilderment my father expressed as he read Dominican newspapers for more information, the candlelight vigils held outside the apartment buildings where passengers on that flight had lived. I also remember how little this crash was remembered when it was determined the cause was not terrorism. How quickly the news coverage trickled off, how it seemed the larger societal memory had moved on, even though the collective memory of my community was still wrestling with the loss.

Throughout the years, I’ve circled back to the details of that flight. Knowing I wanted to remember. Knowing I wanted a larger narrative that commemorated that moment in time. My research led me to so many stories of individuals who were returning to the Dominican Republic to retire, to open grocery stores, to help a sick relative, or to celebrate their military leave. My research also led me to stories of people with multiple families, with large secrets, with truths that were exposed publicly and without pomp after their death.