Santo Domingo Summer

Verano en Santo Domingo

I came to the Dominican Republic to find my roots. I found much more.

"Welcome to Santo Domingo," the guide said. "I'm Ramón. I'll be showing you the city your grandmother left."

"You know about my grandmother?"

"I know about everyone's grandmother. It's my job."

My grandmother had left Santo Domingo sixty years ago, and I'd grown up on her stories—the colonial zone, the Malecón, the mangoes that tasted better there than anywhere else on earth.

"She wasn't exaggerating," Ramón said when I mentioned the mangoes. "Our fruit is blessed."

"By what?"

"The Caribbean sun. The Dominican soil. Magic."

"You believe in magic?"

"I believe in things that can't be explained." He looked at me meaningfully. "Don't you?"

He took me everywhere—the cobblestone streets my grandmother had walked, the church where she was baptized, the neighborhood that still remembered her family.

"Your grandmother was legendary here," an old woman told me. "Beautiful. Fierce. The man who won her was the luckiest in the city."

"That was my grandfather."

"I know. I cried at their wedding."

Ramón waited patiently through all of it—the stories, the tears, the overwhelming weight of connection.

"You're good at this," I said. "The patience thing."

"Heritage trips are emotional. I've learned to make space."

"Do they all affect you?"

"No." He paused. "Yours does."

He kissed me on the Malecón, with the sun setting and the waves crashing and my grandmother's city glowing behind us.

"This is unprofessional," he murmured.

"I won't tell if you won't."

"Your grandmother would approve."

"How do you know?"

"I've learned her story. She loved boldly. You inherited that."

We spent the rest of my trip together—not as guide and tourist, but as something more. He showed me hidden beaches and family restaurants and parts of the city no tour included.

"This is where I grew up," he said, bringing me to a modest house in a neighborhood far from the colonial zone.

"It's beautiful."

"It's humble. But it's real."

"Real is beautiful."

"Stay," he said the night before my flight.

"I have a life back home."

"You have obligations. Not the same thing."

"Ramón..."

"I'm not asking forever. I'm asking for more time. To see if this is what it feels like."

"What does it feel like to you?"

"Like your grandmother's magic mangoes. Too good to be real, but absolutely real."

I stayed. Two more weeks became two more months. I took remote work, found an apartment, fell deeper into love and the island alike.

"Your grandmother sent you," Ramón said one evening. "I'm sure of it."

"She died before I was born."

"Spirits don't die. They guide." He held me close. "She guided you home."

We married in the same church where my grandmother was baptized. My family flew in, his family welcomed them, and two cultures became one.

"To Abuela," I toasted, tears streaming. "Who left this place but never stopped loving it. Who gave me the map to find my way."

"To us," Ramón added. "The next chapter of her story."

Santo Domingo summer—where roots run deep, and love blooms in ancestral soil.