Grandma, Where Will Your Love Go? is Adriana Camacho-Church’s first book and is based on memories she has of her grandmother, who helped raise her and her siblings in Colombia. After Adriana and her immediate family moved to the United States, she never saw her grandmother again, but never forgot her strong and compassionate character. Adriana grew up in Chicago and Los Angeles where she learned to integrate two cultures and languages. She currently lives in Delaware, where she works as a freelance writer and as a paraprofessional in Delaware’s public libraries.
Why write about Death?
When I was told that my grandma had died, I was seven or 8 years old, and by that age I knew it meant I would never see her again. Yet what I know of her life and her character have stayed with me. Her kindness, her wisdom, and her resilience have influenced my character, my actions, and my decisions.
My first image of death as a young child involved a group of men holding a long wooden box on their shoulders. Their shoes kicked up dirt as they walked down to the cemetery. “Grandma, what’s in the box?”
I asked. “Someone died,” she answered. What does that mean, I thought? The second image took place at Grandma’s house. A man lay stiff in a fancy black box in the living room. People lined the street outside of Grandma’s house to look at the body. No one smiled and some looked down at the ground as they waited for their turn. My mom picked me up so I could look inside the box. The deflated man was dressed in a black suit and white shirt. This is what death looks like, I thought. I did not like it.
Nature reminds me of the power beyond us, and that gives me comfort. The cycle of life and death in nature shows me a continuity. Witness a plant drop its seed; watch that seed sprout new life.
I wrote the book to express a thought, a feeling, and an experience. I hope it helps readers cope with death – an inevitable part of life that affects us all, regardless of age and skin color.
Why I love the dragonfly, la Libélula.
The dragonfly is a tenacious bug. It has been around since before the dinosaurs. To me they symbolize adaptation, transformation, and change. They carry the ancestry of ancient times. They are resilient. They teach us.
In Grandma, Where Will Your Love Go? they symbolize continuity and everything that came before. I love to watch them fly. As a child, I would stand very still to watch them propel themselves, upwards, downwards, backwards, forwards, side to side, and even hover in midair. They are beautiful.
Their powerful, iridescent wings reflect sunlight and color, reminding us of the beauty and diversity in nature.
Adriana Camacho-Church 
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