Last month I grieved the departure of a special one. Chloe.

The profound lessons she left us allowed me to think with theory. This is my way of escaping the realities and constrains that i negotiate in daily basis with our world.

Chloe came to us as a surprise, very much like theory. I have heard about the importance of theory as i also have heard the tremendous love that someone could bring to the world. I tried to run away from the commitments but in fact what i discover was among chaos, confusion and lack of making senses that things start to make even more sense. It was in an apocalyptic way, uncovering the veil and breaking up the chains that have control my life, thoughts and my reality for a long time.

i knew that taking care of someone else is a big responsibility, just as theory and post-qualitative paradigms provide us the responsibility to see things differently. For so long, breaking up the chains, structures, systems and oppressive conditions that we have been conditioned to accept as reality, where not longer constrains but instead liberating.

Barrad reminded me that i was not longer dog-owner/dog-dad but i was entangled with a human/animal/dog/daughter/chloe that demanded my love, attention and commitment. All the boxes, stereotypes, were eliminating and all the boxes that could include chloe were not longer important. She was Chloe and she was as entangled in my life as i was with her. My subjectivity, multiple-roles would shift often between the care giver,love taker / love receiver and a father. Perhaps my idea of family might be very different from yours but in the assemblage we needed each other to make it work. It could not be separated, it was mutual.

Somekh and Lewin(2011),we can only begin to understand how people behave as they do, and the stories they tell, if we see these actions and words as entangled with many other “worlds” and words that we likely cannot see or hear, but we need to gain inside into (p.34).

Chloe became an essential part of my life. She showed unconditional love and kindness for strangers. She displayed qualities of happiness and sorrow. She suffered in her own ways never complaining. She was silenced. Just as many people that we know. Nevertheless, she loved every single person that came through my door. For her, they were not strangers, they were family.

On April 29th at 4:17pm i saw her depart in my arms. She slowly left earth leaving a great hole in my heart. However, I knew that she left us with great lessons, including care, compassion and love for others. Her departure has not being easy but I accepted her new entanglement with earth. Chloe Sofia Ramirez is among the living, the dead, among the dirt, and air. Her spirit is not bounded or constrains by a home, laws and rules. Her soul and spirit are not longer constrained. She is free.

Descanza en paz!