Kotas Christmas Letter 2020

To our dear friends, Merry Christmas! We truly hope this is a blessed season to every one of you and your families! 

At the beginning of 2020 we had just come back from our trip to Brazil and we were so thankful for having spent some necessary family time there, been able to attend my brother’s wedding and even gone out on a cruise, just Dan and I. When we were still in Brazil Dan had his first phone interview with the Houston Methodist and while we have been wanting to go back to Texas for some time already, we were patiently just praying for this opportunity and God’s will for our family.

After we came back to our home in Georgia, Dan was called for an in person interview and he thought it went pretty well. Shortly after he was offered a job and right on my birthday, February 10th, he accepted and signed the job offer. I had previously promised myself I wasn’t going to move again in less than five years from a previous move and specially that I wasn’t going to take my kids out in the middle of the school ever again. So here we are! =)

Dan went house searching on his own while I stayed in GA taking care of the kids and schooling. He found a great rental house on which we are staying until March, 2021. It is a little far out from Houston but that’s basically the only downside. We been incredibly blessed living in this property. We have 3 playgrounds nearby, lake trails, a nice yard and beautiful sunsets.

Just when the lockdowns started nationwide, we were able to move just in time in the final week of March. I felt like Moses crossing God’s people towards the open sea and the waves closing in immediately after. For a good while we saw no one and kept to ourselves, finishing the school year as homeschoolers. We had Dan working from home entirely from April to October. Since then and now he goes in to his office two or three times a week. 

I am sure the pandemic brought many challenges to all families, ours included, but I hope we were also able to grab every silver lining we could find and to us, having Dan every day at home, especially during summer was really something we were grateful for. Having lunch together, not waiting until very late for him to come back and being able to take our kids outside or go for walks before work or throughout the day were surely huge blessings. While we knew this wouldn’t last forever, we enjoyed all we could.

Another amazing blessing of 2020 was St Theresa Catholic School and Church. Thanks to the gentle urgings of my friend Renee (we met while we lived in Kingwood from 2012-2015) we enrolled Rebecca and Nicholas at this incredible school – 4th and 1st grades respectively. Both Dan and I are so pleased with the school and our kids seem to love it as well. They have the best teachers they are thriving academically and growing spiritually! It is more than we expected it to be, to be honest. Vicky just turned 4 years old in December and she’s still home with me. Hopefully she will be able to attend school (prek) next year and I’ll have to keep busy, one way or the other.

This year proved to us that we indeed love Texas the most. We are surely happy to be back but looking at our fridge with Christmas Cards from our friends all over the US and the world we noticed how blessed with friendship we have always been! We are thankful to have met you all throughout the many places we lived and each place was special and good because of friends like you! And we would love your visit in the near or far future.

I was hesitant if I should write or not our traditional Christmas letter in this year of 2020, but I couldn’t refrain from doing it, so here we are. It has been a very different year for all of us and we respect everyone’s personal takes and decisions. We understand these are trying times. We know and love all of you. Please know we pray for you daily (the kids do it too) in our morning prayer.

Again, we wish you and your loved ones a very Merry and Holy Christmas and a blessed 2021 – or at least that we are able to find its blessings!

The Kota Family

Kotas Christmas Letter 2019

Hello friends!

First of all, we wish you and your family a wonderful, holy Christmas and a blessed New Year! We are thankful for your friendship and we enjoy keeping in touch with each other throughout the years.

One of 2019’s most important events was Rebecca’s first communion in May. We had family members visiting us for this very special occasion which made it even more special. We truly felt Rebecca was finally ready for this important moment of her life and she also enjoys going to confession on a monthly basis. Rebecca continues to attend St John Bosco, a catholic hybrid school, as a third grader and is doing very well. She loves the school and her friends there. Finally, Rebecca started attending Challenge girls club at a catholic church close to her school. Rebecca has blossomed into a sweet, independent and responsible young lady.

Nico was definitely a main character in 2019, as well, but for a different reason! Late in August, he was hospitalized for 6 nights due to an abscess behind his throat. We are so thankful for medicine and for all the prayers that dear people sent our way as Nico fully recovered from it after undergoing surgery and rounds of IV and oral antibiotics. In other news, Nico and daddy went to their second boys- only camping trip in July and loved it, as per usual. Nico matured immensely in school this year– Georgia preK at Kids R Kids for the first half of the year and kindergarten in our local public school for the second half. Nico is doing very well at school. Teacher says he is often a model student and we are so glad he is reading. He enjoys having many friends and ice cream on Fridays at school. 

Vicky continues to be our very happy and energetic toddler! She captivates anyone around her and she might be aware of her power! What a cutie pie. She has the incredible ability to make us easily forget all of her mischiefs, pronto! Our plan is that Vicky will start prek-3 next year. Meanwhile she accompanies me to church every weekday and makes sure to fiercely high-five the priest every single time after Mass.  She loved swimming a lot this summer and she enjoys our trips to the library and playgrounds. She absolutely loves the outdoors and she’s entertained by every little leaf or ant she finds on her way. Vicky is full of life and her strong emotions show that.

Dan and I have continued to attend Opus Dei monthly recollections and the annual St Josemaria’s feast day Mass. Living close to Opus Dei formation is a true blessing in our lives and I do not take it for granted. This year the Opus Dei prelate, Dom Fernando Ocariz, visited the United States and I was able to go to NYC for a day to one of the meetings. What a privilege and fruitful experience it was. I am so thankful.

As a family we enjoyed visiting Georgia mountains for Dan’s birthday in February and a trip to Anna Ruby Waterfall in late May. We discovered new parks and cool playgrounds around Atlanta and we also visited Six Flags a few times this year. We enjoyed our summer membership at Lifetime as we took total advantage of their great pools every single weekend and some weekdays too. And finally, I write this letter just a week before we take off to Brazil. My brother Rafael is getting married to a great gal on 12/21 and we are also very excited to be spending Christmas and New Year’s with our families!

As we look back, it’s easier to realize how blessed we are, but the grinding of each day feels much different (I think most of you can relate to this feeling as well)! And for this reason I love to get a chance to sit down and write our family retrospective Christmas letter!

I pray and hope this letter finds you well and thriving! And if anything is not right at the moment, you can count on our friendship and prayers!

Love,

The Kota Family

 

 

 

Kotas Christmas Letter 2018

 We know it’s very late to be sending this 2018 Christmas card & letter, and we apologize for this, but we truly hope your family had a great and holy holiday! We also wish you an amazing 2019!

I – Gabby –also apologize for having been amiss in the previous years. Sending Christmas cards in between out-of-state moves (in 2015 and 2017) and having a Christmas baby (in 2016) was too much for me to handle. I’m also not sure that we sent out cards in all other years that we been living in the US (from 2009-2014). So, no! We didn’t forget to send you a card in previous Christmas! No one got a card!

Also, you are not getting a picture of us this year, but let’s be hopeful that in 2019 I’ll start doing the whole Christmas card thing properly. I so enjoy getting cards, pictures and letters from all of you! I rejoice with you and it reminds me to keep praying for your intentions and your families!

Now enough blabbering and let’s talk about 2018.

I think most of you will remember that in mid-November, 2017, we moved out of South Dakota and settled in Greater Atlanta, Georgia. Our moving process had many ups and downs – which basically means that a lot went wrong and there were not many “ups” in the “ups and downs” before mentioned. I’ll save you the details, but to sum it up, we started 2018 living in a two bedroom apartment in Roswell, GA then in February we were living in a small-but-quaint ranch house in Suwanee, GA. 

If you ever wondered what is like in Greater Atlanta, Georgia, I’ll briefly describe it to you! It looks like a big city in the Jungle with plenty of uneven terrain. It’s beautiful both in cold and warm months. But it’s dreadful in spring if you happen to have spring allergies, and it can be fearsome in summer with all the mosquitoes. But we do get a bit of all four seasons and summer is not intolerably hot like in Texas. 

Friends here in Georgia are awesome. Very welcoming!  I think it’s because of the vast diversity! Really, I never lived in a place like Atlanta before. I feel like there is a fair share of all ethnicities. The neighborhoods and restaurants reflect this diversity and it has been interesting to get to know these places a little bit.

Traffic is bad! Fortunately, Dan rides an executive bus to Emory (where he works as the director of the EPIC facility, I forgot to mention this before) and that was the reason why we live in Suwanee, since this bus only stops in two different places. Emory actually pays for the commute in an effort to improve traffic jam conditions. And I feel much better knowing Dan is safer riding the bus. 

Impossible not to mention our Six Flags membership in this letter because we’ve spent countless weekends there between the amusement park and the water park. Really, I don’t think I can’t count or recall them all. The kids love it, as you can imagine.

About schooling! Nico had a very challenging year as far as adapting and we ran through a lot of evaluations. Nico is not considered in the Autism Spectrum like we thought he could be, but his ADHD is substantial. Our kids also tend to take a long time to fully develop spoken language so his lack of communication skills - for the first half of the year - contributed greatly to the problem. After much discernment, Nico will start Kindergarten in public school next Fall (2019) and he just started “prek 5yo” at our local Georgia PreK program as we were very fortunate to fill up a last minute opening. We don’t plan on keeping him in public schools for too long, but that’s how is going to be for a while.

Rebecca was in Connections Academy, an online public school for the first half of 2018, which is basically homeschooling. We managed to enroll her in first grade again once we moved to Georgia because she is very small and also too young for the grade she was before. For the second semester of 2018 we enrolled her at SJBA, a hybrid catholic school, 25min away from home, traffic cooperating. Which means she goes to school on Monday and Wednesday and we homeschool on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. It’s a pretty challenging curriculum and it’s been daunting to adjust to the commute and everything else. But I can’t say I regret our decision. I think of it as a blessing in disguise. Quoting a peer mom: “It’s horrible!!! But it’s the best thing we can do for our children!”.  As a super bonus point, Rebecca loves it there! And she never felt like this about any of her previous schools!

Vicky turned two mid-December, 2018. And she is just adorable! Funny, full of joy and energy and so smart! She proves to anyone, time and time again, that she can totally keep up with her older siblings! No plans of enrolling her in a school in 2019, yet!

Finally, on October, 21st, as we were getting so excited and ready for our planned upcoming trip to Brazil – so we could visit family and attend my brothers’ wedding in early December - we received the saddest of news:  My dear dad (Antonio Alexandre de Moraes - or simply, Toninho) had a heart attack and passed away suddenly at only 59yo. We hopped in a plane the next evening so we could attend the funeral. It was the funeral of a saint. Around a thousand people came, seven priests co-celebrated his present body Mass, and many were the testimonies we received of granted favors through his intercession later on (and still going on). 

We are fortunate that nothing was left unsaid between all of his 11 children and our dad. He knew how much we loved, acknowledged and appreciated him, and we knew how much he loved us and how much he sacrificed himself for us! He was a very loving and happy man! He would help anyone, anyhow even without being asked to. I am really blessed to have him as my father and as my example of holiness. It’s an honor, which I carry with grieving heart, nonetheless.

Lastly, our lengthy time in Brazil was necessary to spend it out with my family. My brother’s wedding was beautiful and blessed. It was gratifying for me to see that each of my siblings (and the respective girlfriends and newlywed wife) are amazing, selfless, godly people!

As I finish this letter, I ask for your continued prayers for me, for all of us and for my mom. May God and Our Mother lead us the way through healing. Also, please keep Rebecca in your thoughts and prayers as she prepares for First Communion on May, 4th, 2019. 

I’m forever grateful to you and please know you are in included in my prayers, as well.

Love, 

The Kota Family

Reflexões - 4 anos sem você

Pai,

Sei que me ouve, sei que me ama, sei que ainda cuida de mim! Tenho sua mesma foto no retrato em cima de minha lareira desde que você se foi. Tenho seu chat de Whatsapp pinned no top dos outros chats. Por quatro anos, tenho a mesma foto de pefil do whatsapp, a nossa ultima foto juntos.

Quando vou na sua casa, é difícil. Vejo sua foto em todos os quartos das minhas irmãs e de minha mãe. Depois dos primeiros momentos cumprimentando e vendo a família enfim reunida, quando tenho um momento só pra mim, mais calmo, vou lá no armário tocar as suas camisas lavadas e bem passadas. E confesso que tento cheirar seu cheiro, e até  procurar um fio de cabelo que talvez tenha ficado perdido por lá.

O luto vem em ciclos. Durante os dois primeiros anos da pandemia, veio a fase da aceitação pois era fácil ver o lado positivo de você ja ter partido em paz, uma morte rápida, sem dor, depois de um dia feliz. De pensar que você teve um lindo funeral, mais de mil pessoas compareceram. Que eu pude estar presente. E fiz questão de passar a maior parte do tempo do seu lado acariciando sua testa, pois faziam mais de 3 anos que eu não te via pessoalmente, não te abraçava, não te tocava enquanto você ainda era vivo.  Guardo comigo o terço que ficou do seu lado por horas como um dos meus maiores tesouros. Tenho ainda as pétalas de uma rosa amarela, sempre as minhas favoritas, que tirei das outras que adonarvam seu corpo.

Nas questões mais profundas, confesso que a princípio não tinha mais desejos de ter outros filhos, pois esses não viriam a te conhecer. Contudo, aos poucos fui me abrindo a ponderação. Meus irmãos não tiveram o luxo de terem filhos enquanto você era vivo. A minha Vicky mesmo já tinha quase dois anos quando você partiu mas também não chegara a te conhecer pessoalmente. E de fato, a nossa vida continua. A muito contragosto, temos que aceitar que a sua história terrena acabou ali mas a nossa deve continuar sem você. E então mais um filho veio. O lindão, espertíssimo e extremamente querido, Giovanni Antonio, hoje com quase 9 meses.

Mudamos mais uma vez de Estado e estamos na nossa terceira casa desde que você se foi. Como fiquei aliviada de deixar pra trás a Georgia e tudo que me lembrava do dia de sua partida. O novo emprego do Dani em Houston, TX, tinha em tudo a cara da sua intercessão de pai junto a Nossa Senhora, mãe de Jesus e de todos nós e ao Pai. Voltamos para casa. Houston sempre me pareceu HOME. A vida aqui está tranquila e boa. Temos uma casa perto da escola e da paróquia - que são tão boas. Nossos amigos são muitos e ótimos! O emprego do Dani é muito bom. Minhas crianças estão bem e vão muito bem na escola, e eu também estou muito melhor das minhas alergias e ansiedade. Nosso ambiente familiar está estável e o amor e cumplicidade progredindo. O Dani finalmente pôde se dar ao luxo de ter um hobby e está encantado com pescaria, atividade que você tanto amava. Hoje mesmo, por coincidência, Dani está na praia pescando com sua nova vara. Isso não quer dizer que não tenhamos o que batalhar, mas a fase é de calmaria, de fato.

E nesses momentos, o luto entra mais facilmente na fase da negação. Fico pensando muitas vezes que ERA pra você estar aqui conosco. Você continua sempre jovem na minha lembrança, mas era para você estar aqui, envelhecendo com a gente. Era para eu ter te visitado, e era pra você ter me visitado aqui nos EUA, uma, duas ou três vezes. Era pra você  ter feito várias piadas no chat da família, ter babado muito nos seus netos e ter nos dado frequentemente aquele seu sorriso tão amável e verdadeiro que passava tanta segurança.

As vezes me pego dizendo que a maior desgraça de nossa vida foi você já ter partido. Mas sei que não posso dar várzea para esse sentimento pois atenta contra a vontade de nosso bom Deus, que sabe de todas as coisas. Não posso me julgar mais sábia que Deus. Não devo me revoltar com nosso Deus irrepreensível, perfeito, bom e que nos ama infinitamente.

Mas é difícil deixar você ir, mesmo já tendo partido. O ser humano é limitado e aceitar um fato chega muito perto de o esquecer, deixar pra lá. E fica essa dualidade de sentimentos. Enfim, não há muito que posso fazer a esse respeito. E enquanto não tenho mais respostas ou mais consolos, pelo menos deixo imutáveis suas fotos no porta retrato e no chat do WhatsApp!

Pai, te amo muito. Você foi um maravilhoso homem, pai, avô e amigo. E ainda é. Não posso ser ingrata. Mas fica conosco! Nossa conversa hoje é fazer oração. Nos ajude a ser mais santos, a ajudar mais gente, a servir mais, a perdoar sempre, a sempre voltar para Deus. Nos ajuda a ter sempre o foco no Céu, a amar mais a Deus e confiar mais na presença e proteção de Nossa Senhora, mãe! Amém.