Finding Homestead
By: Judith Gomez Pinon

Isabel recalled many nights watching the news and crying as she saw the people floating around in the ocean waiting to be picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard. They DESPERATELY needed to reach safe ground. “Where the ocean and the skies join it is not a pleasant site.” Alex was resigned to die if necessary, but he was not turning back. He would not go back to Cuba. Men and women sacrificed themselves to the sharks, but only after handing over their children to the neighboring rafts. “Please make sure my child reaches America.” Isabel had prayed full of compassion for these strangers... little did she know that destiny would bring one of them to her for her nurturing and he would bring new strengths of survival to her. It took only for their eyes to meet... two lost souls had been united... Together they traveled a path full of inspiration, romance, family, personal growth and faith. Together, hand in hand, they encountered many voids, uncertainties and new horizons: voids of a man and a woman, voids of victories and defeats, voids of life; horizons full of malice, grief and joy.

Pages from the original diary kept by the author are incorporated into the novel:

“In this hole as we kindly and proudly call it today, we found ourselves. We came to it out of desperation, forced to rebuild, forced to go through a rebirth. Was there a divine hand in it all? Pain changed us forever; destiny comforted us, altering our lives severely while leading us into courageous and “weak” moments that determined our true value on this earth... to live the full life we now enjoy in the town that means exactly what we longed for, for a very long time... HOMESTEAD.”