The quiet bus pulled into the front of the church at south 3rd street and Driggs avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, around 11 pm. And like on so many church trips before, a sense of sadness swelled in my young chest. Those trips for me were the closest I had to feeling a sense of being in a loving, caring community. Arriving back home in Brooklyn reminded me of the world always waiting for me, a world of a depressed mother, the memory of a deceased father, and an insecure community tearing at itself with violence.

Every summer, the First Spanish Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, NY, organized a series of weekend-long trips for its members. This was designed for the older folks on a budget. It was a great way to keep many of the members engaged during the dog days of summer and raise a little money for the church so they could have activities for the fall and summer. My grandmother, on my father’s side, was a member of the church. And she had joined it when she moved to New York City from Puerto Rico back in 1961 with my Aunt, Clara, and a 9-year-old boy name Jorge, my dad.

For the years of my life between 10 and 13, I anticipated the month of April, not because of my birthday or the Easter holiday break, but because the church would announce what the planned summer trips would be, and my grandmother and my aunt Clara would start discussing which trips they would book.

I remember the excitement and fondness faded a bit as I grew older. The cruelty of becoming a teen is that those you admire become brittle, weak, and less fun, while your insecurities get amplified and the world around you becomes crueler.

Once on the bus, I would lose myself in daydreams staring out the windows at the seemingly endless roads to so many places outside New York. I especially loved when we would hit the countryside, and I would see real-life barns. I always remember the barns.

On every trip back, there was always a moment, usually when we were about 2 hours outside New York. Everyone was tired and looking forward to getting back home. Someone would ask Lydia Ortiz to sing En Mi Viejo San Juan. It is an old song of the Puerto Rican diaspora whose chorus repeats, “I leave, now I leave. But one day, I will return to my old San Juan.” The song ends with the person never being able to go back to their homeland and dying in a “strange nation.” Lydia’s voice was beautiful, and by the end, it would crack as she started to cry. And many on the bus would join her in tears.

The rest of the bus ride was quiet.