Maria Clara Ospina
For the Ospina Hernández, that is, the descendants of Mariano Ospina Pérez and Bertha Hernández Fernández, 2023 has been a year blessed with new additions to the family founded by them. It happens that this year my parents will add 5 new great-great-grandchildren, completing 17 in total, and I will be the proud great-great-aunt of the same number of great-grandnephews, something that amazes me, as they would.
The Ospina Hernández were 5 children: four men and I, the only survivor of that generation, 28 grandchildren, 47 great-grandchildren and by the end of 2023 there will be 17 great-great-grandchildren; a thriving tree of life.
Let’s see: by the end of this year my brother Mariano and Helenita Baraya will add 4 more great-grandchildren to their offspring, Adriana, granddaughter of their daughter Patricia, who has just been born, two more, Javier’s grandchildren and a child Angelita’s grandson. The second grandchild of my niece Bertha Olga, eldest daughter of my brother Fernando and Olga Duque, will also arrive.
It is exciting to see how the family is strengthened with new members distributed in many parts of the world. Naturally, many of you, my kind readers, have the same thing happen in your families. Those shoots of new life will take to all those places, the continuation of what we are, of the principles learned from our elders, of the pride of a Homeland that is carried in the blood, no matter where one is born, of a race, ours. Antioquian breed, which carries “the iron between the hands because it weighs on the neck ”, of the Antioquia ruana, “the cape of the old hidalgo” and the direct look into the eyes of a great people, of great ideas, creator of industries, dream-maker, conqueror of mountains, rivers, lakes and rocks, rich in mines, orchids, poetry and couplets that are companions of his tiple.
As if this were not enough, on April 14, Simona arrived to my in-laws, a long-awaited third great-granddaughter; a little star welcomed by the Vegalara and Pardo families.
Why tell them all this? Because I believe that good news must be shared and enjoyed in company, and what better company than my readers? With whom I have shared so much through my more than 1,500 published columns. Ultimately, we all walk through life in parallel; even when our existence is marked by multiple ups and downs, diametrically different. However, two moments are common to us, birth and death. I have shared with you many deaths. Today, happily, I share these wonderful births that have filled me with hope and illusion.
While in the country the decibels of uncertainty and rejection of the retrograde and ill-conceived reforms proposed by ministers and ministers of the uncoordinated government of Gustavo Petro are rising; while Francia Márquez, the resentful vice president, sharpens her daggers of hatred against the “elites”, without explaining whether they are the elites, workers, academics, scientists, religious or politicians, or simply anyone who has stood out or succeeded in the life; while she continues to shamelessly abuse her position, following the example of the president’s wife, his son, her brother and who knows how many others; I hope you find refuge watching your families grow, as I find it watching the family of my parents Mariano and Bertha grow.