July 2021

Sighs, Songs, and Sadnesses

A half century ago, in my Navy Corpsman days, a friend, a Vietnam combat Doctor, Grady Harp, wrote and shared with me a small book of field memories that spoke his heart. He entitled it, “Sighs, Songs, and Sadnesses.”

All that and more my wife, family, and I, have experienced over the last couple of weeks.

For Camille and I, it began with a very early morning visit from a Deputy Sheriff on official business.  He was a kind man, with terrible news.  Our dear eldest daughter Clara, had been killed in a tragic motorcycle accident in rural Colorado…

Most of my offerings over the last few years have been light, fun, informative, all appropriate to a newsy Real Estate update, at core devoted to matters of “Home.” So I struggled this month on whether to share what will follow. But them the best of homes have a heart. And hearts, your’s, mine, along with the “Songs,” sometimes know the deepest of “Sadnesses.” As for

“Sighs,” they are most healing when shared. So for your sorrows, and mine, I share this instead of a 4th. of July “Sparkler” type of a story.  But then, maybe it is that too. For Clara indeed sparkled, and in her too short, forty seven years, fully lived up to her name, a light-bearer.

She was hard to peg, but in all, shone.  Sharp in mind, Clara graduated summa cum laude from a tough Jesuit University. With heart as big as heart, she took half a year volunteering with Mother Teresa’s nuns, there Sisters of Charity, in their Calcutta, India, homes for the destitute dying, leper colonies, and orphanages. While there, laboring “hands-on,” Clara contracted tuberculosis, and returned home to a tough year of medical interventions and recovery.

She pushed herself back to fitness and beyond, as a fire-fighter with Wash. State Dept. of Natural resources, where in just a few years she rose to the position of helicopter crew chief. Before leaving that Agency, she single-handedly wrote their definitive safety manual, so complete officials amended but one sentence. 

Her remarkable management skills then saw service over twelve years to two multi-million dollar estates in Santa Fe, where Clara oversaw all operational (including technical, construction & engineering) and personal (including supervising all employees) functions.

At the time of her passing, Clara was writing policy manuals for a major New Mexico Solar energy company. She was a staunch activist and advocate for wise stewardship of the earth.

Clara dreamed of someday being a professional athlete. Little did we dream she would achieve that as a woman boxer. And yes, I was probably for a couple of those fights the world’s oldest water boy. Ringside I was at once immensely proud and yet cringed at every shot she absorbed. She devoted five very hard and disciplined years to the sport. After “retiring,” she gave away the “hard-knock” ringside skills to help patents with Parkinson’s disease. Many benefitted greatly from workouts she developed for them to improve and maintain muscle control and use. She was also mentoring troubled youth.

In her short years, Clara visited over 30 countries. And with her sister Rachel, she logged over 23,000 miles on motorcycle, throughout most of South America. As a papa, I cheered for their guts and shouted, “Go for it girls!” At the same time, I crossed my fingers, worried, and prayed for their safety. They had some mishaps, but after months returned, mostly intact. I never dreamed that having survived the rigors of primitive travel, that Clara would be fatally side-clipped on a perfectly open, hardly-travelled paved road by a “distracted” American motorist.

Clara jokingly referred to herself as an “Inter-galactic Ambassador for Peace.” For sure, she was an Ambassador for peace in the 30-plus countries she visited on earth in her short life-time. And now, I suspect she’s seeing to the “inter-galactic” part of it. I think appropriately, on our return trip from New Mexico a couple of days ago, Camille and I stopped, and with a prayer and tear, released a bit of Clara’s ashes by the National Ratio Astronomy VLA Telescopes near Datil. As the large array’s search the heavens for intelligent life, perhaps they’ll pick up a pulse from her spirit.  Two weeks before she died, she successfully completed and earned not one, but a double Master’s.

At the site of Clara’s tragic abrupt end, amidst lush verdant meadows nestled against the snow-capped Sangre de Christo near Cotopaxi, Colorado, we placed roses, and her sister Rachel left a little framed plaque that read, “I’m not saying I’m Wonder Woman or that I’m not. But I am saying you’ve never seen me and Wonder Woman in the same room together.”

To the bottom of that, with a black Sharpie pen, we wrote, “But we have…”

Rest in Peace dearest daughter. God how we’ll miss you.

Dad

Anthony de la Torre
Sun City Grand resident