Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward!

My dad had some unwritten contract with my mom, to spend one week in the city, and another week in the countryside. He was born there and he needed to feel the soil, and the garden, see the animals, and work on some trees. This was the good life for him. And now, seven years later, that house is empty. Nobody lives there anymore. My mom is still going to check, maybe once per year. But, must be hard for her.

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In the first two years, it was different. You may still find the book that my dad never finished. Some of his clothes were still in the cupboard. His slippers were hidden behind the entrance door. Small signs that he was there, that he use to live there. The wood was cut, and arranged neatly, to last the whole winter, which he never managed to reach it. But now, the house is devoid of any of those little memories, and the dust is settled.

Out memories, happy or sad, tend to disappear too, with the passing of time. And the house is sitting there, empty and cold, like a mausoleum from another era. The time when my dad was still alive.

And I am sitting here now, realizing that this happened seven years ago. Last time when I've seen Dad. And sometimes the memories hurt. When you realize that a small pile of wood is all that is left. And you become sentimental. You do not want to use it for fire. Is that wrong? I was there when they cut the wood, freshly taken from the forest. Our forest. I was there helping, as it happened to be that one week when I fly home, to see my parents. And I was annoyed, as they do not have a phone signal and internet up there, in the old village. I could not wait to finish the job, so we may go home. To the other home, in the city.

Another feeling, in another life.

Losing people is hard, especially the ones close to us. We are resilient, we say to ourselves that we will recover. But are we recovering? Or it is just that a whole world dies with each person that is passing away? A whole world, a whole life, memories that will never be taught or described, feeling that will never be felt, and faces that will never be seen again.

And this feeling of loss, you think it may get better if you wait long enough until it happens to you. As time goes by, and nothing changes, you may get older, wiser, or not. But the memories are there, all of them.

The Golden Era, when you were just a kid and lived happily surrounded by the love of your parents. Not a bit of worry. Everything is so far away and all you got now is the nostalgia, and the knowledge that once upon a time, in the Eighties, you were happy and complete. You did not have some missing bricks, trying to build your own Universe.

And late at times, sometimes, I let myself be happy. Until I realize that I miss so much and that my life changed, and, even if it is our duty to emerge stronger and more prepared after conquering our fears and challenges, I realize that hidden deep inside of me, is still that curious, mischievous little boy that use to enjoy a different life many decades ago. It is just that I need to shave more often these days.

Nothing more.

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