Sundays to compose the sky

 

Dad, today the world loses one more point, the earth as I know it, loses its interest, another index of happiness stolen from my private universe. From a nobility that never fails here, out there, they welcome his tenderness, his daydreams, his frustrations and anxieties, today he left on the wing of Nithnaiah, on the day of chestnuts and jeropiga, I don't even know what to tell you, the man who was my second father left, the borrowed father who stayed,  that you left here, almost your clone, but stronger than you, who resisted the weather and pain, the disease and became himself a spectator of life, of its profound mysteries. Today, father, you will receive him in your arms as a brother, on a journey that begins in the light, a heart the size of his size, a ritual moustache, a meek look and a touch of pagode, brejeiro and humorist, today he leaves and I selfish, cry unintentionally, because I would have to suffer, if I know that it is in the light that he is,  in peace, in eternal love, that we would smile and sing, but you know, father, sometimes I ran to his gaze, to his strong embrace, to his genuine sweetness, to his ready tenderness and question, how are you my niece, how are you Cristina, and you know that even his voice was yours,  A kind of guiding star, a castle full of battlements and walls where no fear entered the lairs, and just seeing him look at me had the sweet power to take away my stress. Gaia dawns, Vilar de Andorinho says goodbye, but he is already on the path of the angels, what remains are his mortal robes, of the stature that never lived up to the great human being he always was. Impetuous, generous, artistic and empathetic, he is gone, on his sabbatical. And touching everyone, while he stayed here, he ritualised insults so that they would not miss him so much, he became the boy who ran between windrows, on walls and threshing floors, roofs and battlements, robbing the trees of fruits, the earth resembles and cabbages, God smiles and tears. The child who could never be, this time, wide open.

In my memory, the beach of Aguda, where I would meet him a few times, just to see his smile that would encourage me to continue on the path I am still on. He would put down his knives, wash his big arms of love, clean himself and come for coffee. You around here, girl. The girl was a niece, but she was received as if she were a daughter. He always received me with an abundant smile, as wide as his heart and his moustache, so similar to yours. Ah, I already miss your eyes, as I miss yours, Dad. I remember father, in my pain that I didn't know how to pause, of Tomás far away, hecatombing me, three, four times, of hero and extreme uncle, sitting in the armchair of Trecos, and medals aside, he replaced you in his attentive ear, in his paced speech, in his eyes, father, you were, being him, a whole safe haven,  present, full of chest pains, but always solicitous for others. Of course I know that I will continue to be present, like you, in this immaterial way to which you have already accustomed me. I have never been absent, even though I am not. But now this borrowed father will not have sweet and sweet eyes, he will not have strong arms as supports, he will be another angel to whom I pray and will become one more longing among the others. One more prayer to God. You are all workarounds, behind the apparent farewell funeral. And I am becoming more distant from all the materialities, from all the provisional realities of this plane, because among my laughter and tears, it is with you that I share more and more the humanity that you have taught me. I already know that we will always be discarded bodies, chosen at one moment and then, in the brief time of this plan, piled up with manure on a generous land. And yet Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday will be celebrated again, the movable holidays and the saints, but Dominic, borrowed father, loving and good-natured uncle, will not. What ended was the fact that every day there is no reason to be Sunday again. A branch of sweet and sweet eyes on a pyre heads to heaven. See you soon, see you soon. Don't forget to come and get me. 

Dad, today is a party in heaven, you will all be together, as before. And there is a hint of envy in me, of not being ready yet, to the height of me also heading to your tribe, in heaven. It will be, if it has to be, on a Sunday that is a long day where birds shelter in the trees and park benches where we sit and contemplate the world in its most hidden assumption, that of simplicity. And Sundays will always be days of rest, of waiting for better days.