Isabella

While we were in Brazil (my kids and myself) my son participated in a youth beach soccer group once a week -Flamenco's, I believe. It was pretty fun to see what they were teaching the kids in Brazil soccer organizations because many of the moves are "illegal" in our US youth soccer organizations (i.e. bicycle kicks and headers). My daughter and I enjoyed hanging out on the beach and watching while my son played. My daughter participated in dance instead of soccer while there so she hung with me instead of the soccer kids.
One week we met a lady who was visiting Rio from a different Brazilian state. Her daughter being a huge soccer enthusiast was excited to participate in the beach soccer practice.
Isabella had done some schooling in the US and had also lived in New Zealand (the daughter was born there and her dad still lived there) so she was an easy person for us to talk to since she was fluent in English (we were far from fluent in Portuguese).
We hit it off very well, so well that she invited us to come visit her in her home state of Bahia.
This may be the sort of thing that earns me a reputation for being crazy but after some phone conversations and some WhatsApp communication we decided to take her up on the offer. So off we went to stay with Isabella and her daughter and some of their friends for 2 weeks.
My son still considers this the best two weeks of his life. If he could live anywhere or travel anywhere in the world he insists it would be Pria de Forte. It really was an amazing two weeks and I absolutely love and admire the friends we made. We learned so much from them in such a short period of time and had so many great experiences it feels like it was a lifetime worth of experiences.

But there is one image of the beautiful, quirky, carefree, and amazing Isabella that is forever etched in my memory that I find myself more often referring to in my broken brain; it is of Isabella standing in the airport with her eyes closed taking a deep breath and slowly, though not super obviously letting it out. It was and had been a bizarre and stressful day, by no fault of any of our parties (well, maybe a little of it) but she remained calm, present and pleasant. I was impressed.
I had witnessed her doing this other times and it impressed me. Knowing what I knew about her pilates training and enthusiasm I figured it was a centering technique that came from that -I am not certain- but I loved the simple yet profound example she set for me as she would take these deep breaths and release them in such a controlled way.
She is one of my all-time favorite people in this world even though we haven't seen each other for years and rarely talk, but the moments we had are highly cherished and her influence lives on in me forever as I refer back to her when I need to take my own calming and cleansing breaths to help me stay calm, focused and happy. I will forever love her and her daughter as they had become part of my heart.