Prologue

Year after year, thousands of Brazilians go to the United States in search of two things: money and stability; often leaving behind something very important for life: happiness. Fifteen years ago my mother was one of those disillusioned poor immigrants who leave the tropical country blessed by God in search of the American dream.

Once you are in the land of Uncle Sam everything changes. The perspectives, the dreams, the desires, everything becomes real. The enchanted world that existed only in the imagination is now intelligible. And from then on the return to the roots becomes increasingly deferrable.

And for my mother it really only happened three years later, but not willingly, but by a reason stronger and bigger than any other force in the universe: a mother's love, for that she left the US behind together with an American husband, her apartment, her work, the life she had built, the friends she had, our aunt who had come along with us, money, and everything else and crossed an ocean to find me.

At the time I had no idea of the sacrifice by which she had passed to have me back, but now I can see well enough that no one else ever did greater proof of love for me, and it's likely that no one else will ever do.

  But it was not here exactly that the story began, started some time before, to tell the truth I do not really know when it started, but I have a small amount of tales passed down through time by word of mouth in my two large, giant and enormous families that I own, which every day more and more makes me to put together the pieces of a real life puzzle. There are many versions, with passages in my hometown, the islands around it, Rio de Janeiro, the Strait of Gibraltar, Cairo, the French Riviera, and of course Miami.

But that makes me wonder, does all these passages of my life story has a direct influence on who I am and where I am today? I could not reach so far an absolute truth, but where I find myself now I can see quite clearly that there is only one trick to try to get closer and closer to that truth. It’s to keep moving regardless of the obstacles and keep ahead to see what else life will bring to light.

So come on, let's go back in time toward the 2005 first, and then go ever deeper into the many twists that will appear.