I am immensely grateful to my dear friend. Sol Genafo for having made me a participant in this beautiful letter. A letter impregnated with a great feeling of love towards a friend who disappeared ten years ago, the time it took her to be able to write it.
“What once enjoyed, you never lose. Everything we love deeply becomes a part of ourselves” (Hellen Keller)
Despite knowing “intellectually” that we are mortal, The death of a loved one is a terrible event, very difficult to accept. The breaking of the bond, so strong and important, produces a lot of suffering and calls into question the foundations of human being and existence, significantly affecting the most basic family and social relationships.
In grief, the concept of time is altered, a factor that will influence the way we face reality in the absence of the loved one.
There are several forms of time, including:
If you value articles like this, consider supporting us by becoming a Pro subscriber. Subscribers enjoy access to members-only articles, materials, and webinars.
• Chronological time. It is social time shared by everyone.
• Kairos Weather. In Gestalt Therapy it is the right time to do something and you only know when it is done.
• Subjective time. It is the way of living chronological time. When there is something in the environment that motivates chronological time, we live shorter than subjective time.
In the duel, the future remains unpopulated since he had previously built a future with the absent person and, when he disappears, so does the future built with him. The past is transferred to the present, thereby altering chronological time that becomes eternal. thus disappearing subjective time.
By writing this letter, my friend Sol, without being aware of it, places the past and the present in their place. In this way she constructs “small futures” that imply a future line.
Ending a grief does not mean ending the memory.
“Death takes everything that was not, but we are left with what we had.” (Mario Rodjzam)
Elena, my friend:
It’s been a long time since I wrote to you, it’s true, but always in the belief that wherever you are, any word will take a long time to arrive, I have been leaving it behind.
It all ended so abruptly…! I remember it as if it had just happened. I was translating Cicero (De Amicitia) because the next day he had the last exercise of the opposition. The phone rang; She was your mother, from her house. How odd; She assumed she was with you, since you had just given birth to your second child. She told me you were gone, forever. – No – I told him – you must be wrong. How clumsy one is when one’s feelings oppress one! I even insisted: “-Aurora, tomorrow, when I leave my exam, I’m going to go bring you some gladioli.” “No, dear, you’ll have to take them to the cemetery, because tomorrow…” I interrupted her: “-Aurora, they’re not for a cold tombstone, they are for my friend”…- I didn’t continue listening; She only heard, as if her head was in water, words like “medical negligence,” “she loved you very much…” I didn’t go to the funeral. It’s been 10 years.
I could tell you that around here everything remains the same; with different names, proper and common, but the same. In the Palencia Archive your companions continue with their codices and manuscripts, hiding in the Middle Ages, fleeing the painful day-to-day life of our mediocre age. Everyone knows they will never have a Director like you again.
I still go to Israel often although, from your privileged position, you wouldn’t say to me: “It took you so long to come back, I missed you.” Furthermore, any day, if this continues, I will go there, to take refuge in the Qumran Caves with the congregation of the Essenes.
Know? I have been rereading our abundant exchange of letters and I see that I am still laughing at the same things, that many of my desires have been fulfilled and it turns out that some, once achieved, were not that big of a deal. On the other hand, I also realize that I have stopped getting excited about dreams in that way; It will be age, which advises against drawing castles in the air.
By the way, when I play to imagine what you would be like now at forty-seven years old, I always stop at the same point, what music a music lover like you would listen to now. I guess there, heavenly music and little else, right?
Do you remember, Elena, when, after not talking to each other for a while, as sometimes happens in any friendship, we called each other to abruptly announce to each other that we were getting married? Oh, mischievous destiny, friends since childhood and without calculating it we got married a few days apart. I still have with emotion the lace handkerchief that wrapped your bouquet. I keep that little piece of fabric and the hug we gave each other afterwards in my secret drawer of important things.
And what else… Some walls have fallen, others have risen and I keep hitting the wall because, as I once heard, I have not yet learned to skid.. And he looks like you warned me. Nobody like you knows the recesses of my soul.
I still shudder when I think about a call I made to your house to talk a little with your son Victor; The other was so little that he still didn’t know how to say anything. I told him that he probably didn’t remember who I was, but that I loved him very much and he, with the spontaneity of his five years old, answered yes, that I was “his mother’s best friend” and that you had told him many things. things about me, “before you go to Heaven.” To that special part reserved for mothers, who never completely die as long as they have to take care of their children – I thought. Of course, from there, I could hardly add anything. I just told him that I had a little gift for him. The truth is, between us, I did it knowing that that phrase never fails with children and saying goodbye like that to undo the lump in my throat alone. Of course, some time later, when I saw him, I gave him what I promised, a small telescope. How about? He was very excited about the idea of gazing at the stars.
You won’t believe it, but I recently saw old school friends again (“Wish you were here”). You know, we will always have Port Bou. One of those trips that are made to never return, at least not completely. There, curiously close to the border, remained a part of all of us, of those schoolchildren who sang, laughed, flirted with love…immersed in that unconscious joy that will never return.
You know, Elenita, that I have many, too many, loved ones where you are. So, please, send them a thousand thousand kisses and the request that they continue to take care of me. I know that they often put a cape on me but I need them so much… Just as I would need to hear your kind and always timely, “Baby, you are worth a lot”, which gave me so much security.
Well that, friend, Save me a place like in school, when they lifted the rigid alphabetical order for us. If possible, for a long time. It’s not for lack of desire to see you, it’s because I’m afraid of heights..
Besines like those of your land. Sun.
(Learn more about Gestalt therapy on the blog)
Image: on Flickr