‘Valencia has helped us heal’: This woman left the US for Spain with her teenage son after a heartbreaking family tragedy
By Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN
(CNN) — Living what she describes as a “fairytale” existence with her husband and son in Chicago, Maria Robertson-Justiniano felt as though her future was mapped out.
But everything changed in 2018, when her husband Alex died unexpectedly.
“It was a complete shock,” Maria tells CNN Travel, describing how the tragedy completely altered the course of her life, and lead to her and her son leaving the US.
“I didn’t see it as a feasible option to stay there,” she adds.
Heartbreaking loss
Four years after Alex’s death, Maria relocated to Spain, with her son Lucas, then 14.
The pair have been living in the city of Valencia, where Maria’s mother was born, happily for the past three years.
“Valencia has helped us heal,” says Maria.
While Maria, who was born in the UK and grew up in Canada, had previously spent a lot of time in the Spanish city. She’d even moved there briefly during her mid-20s but hadn’t really seriously considered taking up permanent residence.
However, she always considered the city as her “second home.”
“Wherever I lived in the world, I always carried Valencia with me,” Maria adds.
In 1998, Maria moved from Canada to the US and went on to attend Princeton University, where she met Alex.
The couple, who married in 2001, later relocated to Washington D.C, and had their son, Lucas, before moving to Chicago to pursue their careers.
“Life in Chicago was everything,” she says, explaining that their careers were thriving, and all signs seemed to be pointing towards the family remaining there for good.
“You’re going along and things are like, ‘Oh, I love my life. We’re living such a beautiful life,’” she says.
“And then it’s like a bomb exploded… And you’re standing there.”
Thinking back to that “horrific” period, Maria compares it to a tsunami.
“It’s so calm and lovely,” she says. “The water is going back. And then all of a sudden, this wave takes you over. And you’re left kind of like, ‘What do we do now?’”
In the weeks after Alex’s death, the community of Evanston, Illinois, where they had been living, rallied around Maria and Lucas.
“The community of parents at my son’s school established a food train,” she recalls. “They fed me and my son for three months.
“They would come and leave all the meals on my porch with letters and flowers and notes. It was an incredible community.”
Maria admits that she was desperately sad to leave their friends behind, as well as her job as a professor, but felt as though she “was trying to move forward with this life that I was no longer going to have.”
“Everything would kind of suck me in,” she says. “Alex was everywhere.”
Fresh start
While Maria had initially planned to wait until her son had finished high school, she says it was actually Lucas who suggested that they move to Spain during a visit to the country in 2021.
Once they were back in the US, Maria started the ball rolling.
“I sold my house,” she says. “I sold my furniture, I quit my job, and I started the process of moving and immigrating to Spain.”
However, things weren’t necessarily straightforward after that.
“It wasn’t linear in any sort of way,” she says of the process of relocating. “There were obstacles… I was like, ‘Just keep your eye on the prize.’”
She says she feels as though “there’s a lot of romanticizing” about relocating to the country, and that “everything’s sunny in Spain,” but the reality is that it’s “not easy.”
The first home that she attempted to buy in Valencia fell through, and she wasn’t able to get a golden visa, a program, due to end later this year, that allows non-EU citizens to live and work in Spain for three years.
Thankfully, Maria had begun the process of applying for Spanish citizenship while still living in Chicago.
“That was a nightmare,” she says, adding that she was very grateful to already be fluent in Spanish while navigating the process and believes she would have struggled if this wasn’t the case. Her citizenship came through that same year.
When she and Lucas finally arrived in Valencia to begin their new lives, Maria was overcome with relief.
“It was like arriving to the promised land…” she says. “It was an incredible feeling. It felt like I finished a marathon.”
Over the past three years, Maria and Lucas have thrown themselves into life in the Spanish city, and she says that being in a different environment has done wonders for both of them.
“I feel like I’m a calmer person,” Maria says, adding that “she’s done a lot of work and therapy” over the past few years.
“When Alex passed, I was training to do the Ironman (a long-distance race) … I was out of my mind. I was just trying to not focus on what happened.”
She believes that having some distance “from the epicenter of the tragedy” meant that she was able to “press the pause button.”
“I think that was the biggest change,” she reflects. “Not being always in that fight and flight mode, which is okay if there’s a lion chasing you.
“But it’s not sustainable. But it happens when you go through a traumatic event.”
Healing journey
While both she and her son miss their friends back in the US, Maria says they’re much happier in Valencia.
“He embraced living here and I think that helps tremendously,” she says. “It would be hard if I took the decision and he didn’t want to leave. That would be very hard.”
Maria says she believes that Lucas is safer in Spain than he would be living in the US.
“I don’t worry about him going to school, which is a big reality for school age kids,” she says.
“People don’t carry guns (here). And that was a big incentive.”
Maria stresses that she’s very aware that bad things can happen anywhere, pointing out that their home in Valencia was burgled after they moved in.
However, she explains that she “felt the presence of guns” at times when they were in the US and was never comfortable with it.
“Here, I can run at 10 o’clock in the evening in the summer and not feel like it’s too late to go outside,” she says.
While she finds Valencia to be affordable “by American standards,” Maria notes that it’s “unfair to compare prices when one is earning an American wage.”
She’s noticed some significant changes in the city, particularly in recent years, pointing out that house prices have doubled and a lot of things have become more expensive.
“People work hard here and young people often have to live with their parents because they can’t afford to leave the nest,” Maria says, stressing that increasing costs mean that the city isn’t as affordable for locals.
“People are struggling,” she says. “Especially for housing.”
Big changes
Maria also notes that there has been a “big influx of people coming to Valencia,” recounting how she rarely heard American accents on the streets when visiting the city 20 years ago.
“There were probably American tourists,” she notes. “But now it’s incredible. I’ve met so many American expats. There’s a huge community. And you can get specialty coffee on every corner.”
Although she hopes to remain in Valencia with Lucas, who goes to an American school, and their Labrador Peanut, for the foreseeable future, Maria says that after the loss of Alex, she’s learned to “never make plans anymore.”
“I do imagine my life here,” she adds.
And while she occasionally gets nostalgic thinking of the life that she left behind, Maria says she’s still in touch with her friends back in Chicago and has “a long list of people” asking to come over for a visit.
“I think that when you change your environment, and if you’re open to things, you’re able to see it with different eyes and a different perspective,” she adds.
“Just being with my family and having that support here. It was incredibly healing. And I’ve met so many people that I wouldn’t have been introduced to, where I was living.”
Despite living in both the US and Canada for over two decades, Maria says she always felt like a bit of an outsider, and “didn’t really identify” anywhere.
“It’s hard when you live your life in different places,” she adds, conceding that she feels more connected to Valencia than she has to any other place.
Two years ago, Maria and a friend set up a wellness retreat company, By the Sea Retreats, which offers retreats to Valencia and Sagunto.
“I’ve turned to looking at mental health and wellness,” she adds. “And I have a lot of friends that are in the wellness field. I wanted to establish something that would help people.”
Maria is also setting up a relocation company, Valencia Vibes Relocation, with a team of others.
“We intend to make the moving process and all that it entails seamless and easy for those looking to relocate here in Valencia,” she says, adding that she would “have loved for someone to have done all of that for me.”
Coming home
Maria advises those thinking of relocating to Spain to do as much preparation as possible, and ensure that they have an understanding of how different separate regions can be.
“Not all parts of Spain, for example, are sunny and warm,” she says. “If you go to the north of Spain, you’re going to get rain and it’s going to be cold.
“So if you want sun. If you’re moving from Chicago, for example, and you feel like you want something different, don’t go to the north of Spain.”
She stresses that making such a move is risky and “might lead to disappointment.”
“It’s a huge thing to do,” she says. “You’re leaving your life, and you’re changing so many things… So prepare yourself. And prepare yourself financially.”
While the process of relocating wasn’t “a smooth road” for her, Maria feels that it has opened up many new doors, describing it as the “best decision” she ever made.
“Moving to a different country is exhilarating,” she says. “Because of losing my husband, I was kind of pushed…
“Some people, they want to move for other reasons. And I think it’s really incredible, because you learn a lot about yourself.
“If you stay in the same place for your entire life, you’re that one person. When you move to another country and you learn a different language, you can be another person.
“You can try on another life. And that’s exciting. Because your possibilities open up.”
Although her life certainly hasn’t turned out as she expected, Maria is very excited about the future and feels as though she’s ended up where she’s meant to be.
“I’m an immigrant,” she says. “But I also have ties to this place. So I see myself as coming home. That finally, I’m home.”
One of her favorite photographs of herself was taken on the beach in Valencia when she was about five years old.
Looking back on it now, Maria feels that it was the last time she “smiled really, really big.”
“I was so happy in that picture,” she reflects. “And coming back here, I feel like I’ve found that little girl on the beach that was so happy to be in Spain.
“I wake up and I’m like, ‘I’m so lucky.’ And I am. I feel super fortunate to be here.”
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