After many years and this second physical attempt, I found the grave of Betty Maud Clements in a Blumenau, Brazil cemetery yesterday morning. Her granddaughter — who died two years afterwards — is buried in the same grave.

I genuinely loved this quick trip to Blumenau and feel like really accomplished something good.

I spent the rest of the day site-seeing, reminiscing and generally enjoying the first city of my Brazilian mission in 1978-79.

Had lunch on Friday with an old mission buddy who I hadn’t seen in almost 25 years. He was in town for a periodic check-up following liver transplant surgery in January.

It was interesting how around the subject of my personal life he and his wife tip-toed. They asked me about work, travel, where I had lived in the last 25 years, etc.

Not once did they ask, “So, are you married?”, “Do you have any kids?”, “What callings have you held?”. It was as if they had choreographed the conversation beforehand and had determined what not to ask.

So they would not have to know.

After 90 minutes, I guess they can see I’m the same person as they once knew and will perhaps feel more at ease next time so we can talk about our lives.

Last week Facebook let me know that I should look into ‘friending’ someone with whom I shared a “mutual friend”. It was an old Brazilian mission buddy who I not seen since I left Brazil 30 years ago last month.

I quickly invited him and he accepted with a very nice note indicating that he was so excited to catch up with me after all of these years — and that if I were ever in São Paulo, to look him up.

I wrote back, “Coincidentally, I find myself in São Paulo right now….”

While not able to physically see each other, we did ultimately catch up via an hour-long phone call that he made to my hotel room on the other side of the city.

“…heavily urbanized São Paulo metropolitan area, with an estimated 19,889,559 people in 2009 over 7,944 square kilometers (3,067.2 sq mi), is the largest metropolitan area in the nation.”.
wikipedia:

He caught me up with his life, career and family and then asked what I had been up to the preceding 30 years. I referred him to my Facebook profile, which clearly lays out my life, relationship and career. I figured I would let technology do the vetting so I didn’t have to deal with the uncomfortable “so, what is your church calling”-type questions).

He is a really great guy with lots of enthusiasm still. He currently works for the church’s real estate arm and was literally on his way the next morning to “close on the large, beautiful piece of land for the temple in Fortaleza”.

That said, he barely spoke of the church, except in the context of his job, and did not make me feel uncomfortable in the least.

Welcome back into my life, Elder Rocha.

So, on my travels in Brazil, I flew down yesterday to a city I lived in 30 years ago on my mission: Blumenau, Santa Catarina.

Still a beautiful city, but it has grown so much that at times, I lost my way. The problem was that I was walking and the sun was shining and it was getter hotter and I was not getting younger. The days of walking the streets in a white shirt and tie are long gone — as I found out. Finally a couple of guys at a gas station took pity on me and called a taxi (I hadn’t been able to find one — unlike in São Paulo, where one can’t cross a street without almost being run over by one).

The driver took me to the place I was searching for (R. Casemiro de Abreu, 109) where I found the house of my dear friends, the Clements family, abandoned and in a state of disrepair. I knew that since I has last been there in 1985, the matriarch, Betty Maud Clements, had died (1995) as well as one of her two daughters (Nina de Castro – 1988) and that her granddaughter (Elizabeth Anne de Castro, aka “Xica”) died in 1997. There is (as far as I know) a daughter still living, that would be well into her 80s (Alexandra Clements, aka Irmã Bobby). I had hoped to find her, but to no avail. There were also a couple of other grandsons — “Pinky” and “Booby”, but I don’t know their real names and never knew them very well.

I also asked at the cemetery for any burial records, but the caretaker was unable to find the names. He mentioned that there were several cemeteries (I knew of only two during my time there).

I feel very strongly that while I will always have my memories of that time in my life — and lots of old and now new photographs, that door to my past and my mission via the Clements/Castro family is now forever closed. This feels very permanent.

Last week I was contacted by an old mission buddy of mine, whom I had not seen in more than twenty years. He was in Salt Lake City recuperating from a liver transplant performed in late January and according to the email he sent my older brother to track me down, “wanted to thank” me.

We corresponded via email a few times and arranged to have dinner this week — after I overcame a bad cold and had returned from a long weekend in San Francisco with family.

Upon my return and before we had a chance for that dinner, he said that he had been released a week early to go back to his home in Rexburg, Idaho, so I missed actually seeing him face-to-face.

He’s a good guy with a big heart. I wonder what he will think of me when he finds out that I am gay. My gut tells me that he’d be okay with it, but then my head plays the Rexburg, former-bishop card and I’m left with doubts.

One thing in favor of the former, is that he did not mention the church or religion in our email correspondence — which gives me a ray of hope. Like others, he probably already knows on some level and is just seeking confirmation.

I wish he were on Facebook; it’s so much easier to let my profile do the outing.