You're Pepper #2

My mom has always been called Pepa by her closest friends. It was her nickname. But her American host-mother Gabby, she calls her Pepper.

I always heard about Gabby. On my mom's birthday she would call to wish her well. Maybe we'd get a Christmas card too. She was my mom's "American family". I understood what that meant, but maybe not to the full extent.

When my mom was 23, she applied to work at a YMCA Summer Camp in whoknowswhere, Tennessee. She was hired to play the guitar and teach the campers. She owned a guitar... but little did anyone know she didn't actually know how to play it. "That was Pepper." She arrived one week early to the States. That is how Gabby met Pepper.

My mom arrived at the airport wearing a long, colorful dress of patterned fabrics, decorated with little mirrors sparkling the sun's rays. She looked like a flower child and clearly stuck out in mid-1970s Tennessee. Her host family was a bit shocked by her. Not Gabby though. "Later she'd show up to do laundry, or she'd bring friends by. She'd randomly call and ask if she could stay, we always said sure. She was awesome."

One day, Miguel (my father) called. He was at the bus stop with nothing, so Jones (Gabby's husband) picked him up and took him to McDonalds. Miguel didn't speak much, English. "Sometime after, Pepper picked up and went to Costa Rica. That's when the two of them lived in a tree house."

And then she went to Minnesota. "That was Pepper, saving up, and always going back to school. She's always been a go-getter." Gabby and Pepper got along very well, very quickly. They had the whole European thing going on. (Gabby was born and raised in Lugano before she met her husband Jones, a US soldier based in Frankfurt) Pepper was quite the show in good ol' Tennessee. "People knew who she was." They'd stare as she walked by. Chin-up, flowers in her hair... She loved it--she was a mini celebrity.

Gabby and Pepper also bonded over their travels. Gabby had been all over Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Pepper and a group of six had just driven the distance from Spain to India. They found an old bus, removed the interiors to add a stove and sleeping quarters, and made it the ultimate hippy trip. "Pepper made money by buying trinkets and things on that trip, and selling them when she got back to Barcelona." She never sold that long, colorful hippy dress decorated with little mirrors though. She got that in Afghanistan. I remember seeing that enchanting dress stored in the back of my closet when I was younger. Today, I guarantee it is still in the back of hers.

Pepper is now in her late 50s. Gabby and her kept in touch over the years, a visit here or there when on the same coast. Gabby was there for Pepper during a complicated and emotional divorce. Gabby heard all about Pepper's kids over the years and that is what they did... they stayed in touch.

Today, at my age of 23, I met Gabby. "You're Pepper #2." She walked up to me in the parking lot in Asheville and hugged me as if we'd known each other 40 years.

All I would ever want, is to be like Pepper.