"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal." (from an Irish tombstone)
Last week, just one day after the camp and a few hours after I wrote my last blog, I was killing time in front of my computer, feeling uncertain about days to come and thinking what I will do next year if there would be no camp. I supposed mum already smelled my erratic thoughts and so she took a precautionary step: she went upstairs, gave me those nocturnal lecture and told me off. As a desperate attempt to shut her up, I told her to give me a break.
But sometimes, life presents you with so big a challenge and you can't even ask for a break.
A day after this, a good friend of mine lost her husband in a tragic accident. I won't tell you how tragic because I can't bear re-telling it, but the moment I heard the whole story, I got down on my knees and prayed to God that my family and my closest friends would be saved from such tragic occurrence. It was devastating. I can't imagine how devastating it would be for my friend, who must go through this hell and back. And yes, she has to go back, because she's got two handsome little men counting on her. Life must go on, even without a beloved partner on her side.
Now, I have to admit, when my BFF gave me the news, my problems seem so small, so embarrassingly diminutive that I almost regretted writing about it in my blog. I can't even begin to compare my life as a single woman who is free and still able to do whatever I want and choose the path I want to take with some married friends of mine who have to make sacrifices every day and put themselves seconds. Of course, it's all about choices, but I always believe that the best thing in life is to be free, and although at some point people will want to trade that freedom with some other things in life, things that are also as beautiful as freedom, it will never be the same. What's more difficult is when you have traded this with something that worth more than your freedom, then you have to lose it.
But life's like that. People lose things every day, sometime they are precious and bigger than life itself, but you must continue living. Life was kind enough to give me a week break, to make me re-think about my life and what I really want to do (at least for the moment) and then live up to it, but I know that there are many that are less fortunate, and because of this I feel grateful, and for this I wish them the best of luck.
What I know for sure is that things that are missing from our life will be replaced. It won't be the same, of course, because no two living entities are ever identical. But there are only three possibilities. God either gives you better, or bigger, or more. In any case, God won't let you down. And I sincerely hope that my dear friend will find a replacement even more valued, cherished, and prized than the one she said good-bye to. And it is true, that deaths will leave us a wound that will not be healed, but memories always sustain us throughout the most difficult moments in life. And in good time, we rise again.
