One always dies on some plane

 

In recent times, the anesthesia of the pains and days that follow "the has to be" of those who free themselves from the law of death (as Roger says), remains. I'm living on the edge of a who-knows-what-and-not-for-what. But life is not claimed, it is accepted. Perhaps this is where self-indulgence and laisser passez were born. 

So goes the inner life in me. As for the external, he does not take pleasure in my anaesthesia, not even when, logically, I am enraged because I think that there is a time for everything, I also find this dimension of counting seconds in eternities despicable, this need to tear up decades and centuries to regularize memory aids.  On October 26, a lifelong friend died. And ALWAYS it can no longer be said, it has become insignificant. An always without my eternity that accompanies the taking of conversations up to date, the realization that we are part of the lives of others and others also share who we are and count on us. Nor can we foresee how the daughter will grow up who will see on the faces of others the fear of blowing her mother's name, for fear that the sand castle will collapse, because it is so fragile. Much later, you will hear about her curious and huge eyes, her slender figure, her gracefulness as a ballerina, her ability to dream so much like the best of the Peter Pans I knew. I saw the first white ones, in her hair, but that is not said. On the Sunday before it went out, like a candle caught in a draught of an open forgotten door, I told my mother that I had beautiful locks. The locks were the white ones. Sporadic and punctual in a plentiful and strong honey brown mane. I will not hear you scolding me about my latest blunders. Nothing, nothing. From her mother, I always received the same smile or almost crying hug, saying that I am a living memory of her. Many Christmases will pass without her face fading, because just today I saw her, here, on the other side of this window, next to the barbecue, laughing at the antics of the animals and trying not to limp, trying not to mess with the disciplined fears. He died and we died too, he died and we are still alive, waiting for a sign. She will be able to peek behind her daughter's face, in front of all the animals she loved, mirroring herself inside, without her even being able to guess that she carries her mother even in her tics. I wonder if death is really that bad! No one ever came back. And the body gets in the way when the mission we have is to fly. That was the case.

On the weekend following the funeral and cremation ceremonies (Claúdia is at sea), the daughter came with her father to spend the day with Tomás. We noticed that there was a deactivated equestrian center in Penafiel, we visited the cubs of the Labrador Martim, we had lunch outdoors, the kids were painting the blanket and the adults were exchanging thoughts, words and deeds of the "going". However, I found these animals along the way, another Labrador cub has entered my house by the name of Lolita. Black and two months old. And no, she's not Martin's daughter. I will only have access to these cubs in two months, as they are weaning. I wander through the present in tones of uncertainty, with this sideways pain that has haunted me for months. I told a lifelong friend, whom I hugged with nostalgia, that this year was the worst ever. I feel like more will come. And that we are never prepared for anything. It will never be the right time to receive shocks, to be fouled, to lose. I lost a great friend. I gained a new fear, the fear of discrediting and its reverse. Because they both pull the rug out from under us and throw us to the ground. As if we were fragments of an unrepeatable and impossible piece of His whim.

And Mia Couto whispers this verse:

End Time

Nothing dies

When it's time

It's just a bump

On the road where 

we don't go anymore

Everything dies

When it's not 

the right time

And it's never

That moment

in "Dew Root and Other Poems"