I sat last night in Andrew's office as we listened to several voice messages sent to us by my uncle Peter.

Twenty years ago, we were packing our bags and giving away our life as we knew it to move to Spain. The first night we arrived it was chilly and rainy and dark and we cried ourselves to sleep not knowing what we had gotten ourselves into. The next morning with sunshine and snow gleaming off the Sierra Nevada, we knew it was going to be better.

All my clients, both long and short term now, have reams of knowledge due to the internet/social media, and more about the city they are coming to see. We had a shaky picture of the Alhambra and mountains in 2003, and a bit of knowledge having been to Malaga in 2001 for two weeks.

What we did know was that an apartment was waiting for us. It was ok, too big and furniture in which lurked Franco's ghost, but we called it home, even with the worst mattress we had ever lived with. And not only were these popcorn walls waiting for us, but my Aunt Debbie and Uncle Peter along with my cousin Sam.

Now all three live and work elsewhere, Debbie and Peter bounce between Europe and the US, and Sam is married with a tow-haired son of his own that looks just like him.

These first weeks, then months, and later years would have been so different without them to hold our hands, to cry, to visit the mountains and the beach and the montes of Malaga and the coasts of Cadiz. We have a zillion shared memories, good and bad, but with time the bad ones fade and the good ones shine even more brightly.

Grateful for emails, voice messages, and more, we have endeavored to keep in touch, some moments more than others. Two years ago, they returned for a brief visit and it was so good. We have seen them at Sam's wedding, and cried with them at Nana's funeral.

And like all massive families, the drama continues and we never seem to lack for situations to agonize, cry, pray and laugh over. Right now, the longing is so deep on both ends for a reunion of sorts, and we hope for one to be in the near future.

But back to some memories. While we slogged our way to and from language school, we realized how hard immersion was and we spent hours dissecting language learning and the Spanish language. I remember distinctly one cold winter evening, eating rice and beans in their eat-in kitchen with strong coffee and switching to Baileys to ward off the chill and Peter waxing eloquent about a language has layers and we were just peeling one off to get to the other and me saying how hard subjuntive in Spanish is.

Every time I use subjunctive properly, I pat myself on the back and think of that cold, Baileys-soaked evening.

Or my first birthday here, far from home. A day bathed in sun and heat at the beach and coming back up to their 6th-level apartment to have dinner and wine and a 27-year-old port with them and other friends. And being tipsy with happiness and wine and port and sunburn.

Or Christmas and Thanksgiving and roast suckling pigs and sitting at the table with wine glasses and fighting over corn and pork and rice and savoring the "sobremesa" on Sunday afternoons.....

They taught us and we taught them and we are intrinsically linked in ways of joy and grief for which I am forever grateful.

As Andrew's mom lay dying of cancer, and we were going back to say goodbye, I had coffee with Peter as I often would and he said, "These moments will freeze in time. Be part and present with them as they are so important." and I will never forget that or those moments.

I could go on, but it's for later, these memories.

But yesterday the phrase that sticks out, is living the unholy holy in the midst of Spain. And that will be the theme that will continue as I write more on this blog. More to come...