So is this the moment I move on? That the pain has become so bearable that it no longer touches. That I am getting older this month than you got. I search my whole body, physically and emotionally, but the pain is no longer there. It feels peaceful and strange at the same time, you haven't been there for so long and it's fine. I once wrote a song about it called “For The Better”. The song is a throwback to the last moment in hospital when we knew you were going and we had to say goodbye but were also allowed to. That it was better this way; you were allowed to let go of the pain and take your place in a new existence. Like that's allowed to happen again now; you're not physically there, not for so long and it's fine. Because in the meantime.
Meanwhile, we have done so much together. Your dirty stinky feet during a meditation. Your inspiration and wisdom from your side of life. Your beautiful smile when I close my eyes and see you in front of me. The shenanigans you still manage to pull off from time to time. The beautiful house Rati and I live in and how you helped us move in that direction of Rijswijk. And your business ability with which you always helped my little brother in his time as a landscaper and now me too. How you put wonderful people in my path and still take me by surprise when I am stubborn again. Being so proud of my sister and the education she is doing alongside her work as a nurse. Not to mention your love for my mother, how you have so often expressed your closeness to her.
This writing does touch me, no sadness, no missing too, but just incredibly grateful that I can and may feel this. My buddy Gert-Jan who just sent me a message, today is the birthday of his dad who has also been gone for so long. It is special to see how lives may be so intertwined. You can call it coincidence - but in coincidence lies little beauty. Wonder lies precisely in those small connections that are allowed to emerge when we come together as people. And that doesn't necessarily have to be in the physical. Sometimes precisely in ways we do not understand, cannot grasp with our reason and logic. Love is a mystery!
This month I catch up with you, another year comes to me. No example for me how you age from this point on, but that's no longer important either. Because you are there for me, together we just move on and may we share in our success. Because even though you are not here, not pain has triumphed, but love!
