Dear
Lucas, I do not publish everything I write to you. I constantly write my letters to you and they
are filled with my most vibrant and pulsating feelings, but I store them deep
in my aching heart, in that bottomless place were my bleeding wound still open
and palpitating like an unsatisfied furious second heart, immersed in that
incomprehensible void that cannot be filled.
A huge void filled with nothingness.
Once
in a while I let one of those letters go out to breathe some clear air, and to
remind me that I am still alive. This is
one of those letters, Lucas.
I have been especially weepy and sad lately. There is a sadness that is with me that
dampens my life like a misty morning walk. I walk on a deeply fractured path. I think
about you son; mostly of you Lucas. I
want to be happy, I laugh and smile on my journey but I have constant sadness
in my heart.
I am walking almost blind on a hazy road and sometimes I
cannot tell whether I am going or coming. I am always trying to escape and shield myself
from every memory of the sad dirges of lost love. Nothing is the same and it can never be the
same.
I
have died so many times after you left us Lucas. Life calls itself “life” but it is nothing
but the death wanna-be is disguise. It
is true that has unforgettable moments of happiness, which actually and
effectively erases the cunning stabs she hangs in our unaware and trusting
spirit, that naive spirit who guides our cataleptic lives.
What
bring happiness in life are not our lives, but the happenings that others bring
to us. Those inevitable happenings are our
families, friends and some events in which one or the other is present. Happiness is not for a lonely individual who
has no one to share things and events with, and have no one to share bits of
life with. Happiness has no color or
volume, no taste or established measurement.
It is just that: happiness.
Robinson Crusoe was happy at times only because he had the Man Friday,
otherwise, he would have been a very, very miserable lonely man.
But
that is that. What makes you happy in
life? There is no answer to this
question if you are alone. Being alone
is the lack of life. People close to you
are the only sources of happiness, perhaps your pet, or whichever animal
company you might have. If you have a
dog, have you noticed what he does when someone knocks your door? He runs barking happy and wagging his anxious
tale like the visitor is for him. Once
he realizes that it is not, he leaves and waits for the next knock in the door.
Every
time this happens, he darts again happy and excited for his visitor, but his
visitor never comes, it is never for him.
However, he never loses the hope that the next visitor might be the one
he is always waiting. That is called
hope. We shall learn from our dog. He never gives up, and he is happy even if he
just was deceived again. Life cannot
kill him. No matter how many times she
tries to kill him. We shall learn from
our dog. He knows better.
Life
tried to kill me so many times before Lucas, and I died so many times, but life
killed me so inefficiently, so incompetently, so ineffectually that I
resurrected every time and I stubbornly kept on living in spite of its dark
intentions.
Perhaps
I am getting used to it, Lucas. The deep
and dark pain of your untimely departure from this planet kills me a thousand
times every day, but I manage to resurrect every time. This is because the spirit of my life has
wonderful and life-lasting treasurable memories of you. This is my antidote against its slyness daily
stabbings. Your sweet memories save me
every time, Lucas. Yes, they save me every
single time.
Life
uses that dark day of the past to kill me every day anew, and she has killed me
so many times, and I died so many times, however; I am here resurrecting once
again. Perhaps this is due to the
inability and misfortune of its black hand with her acid and bungling dagger. Life it is not a good killer. Death is.
Life should leave this job to death.
Life
kills me bad too often, and I die every time, but it cannot kill my trodden
spirit, and in spite of the pain inflicted, I keep on singing, perhaps out of
tune; but I keep on singing among joy and tears embracing that bitter-sweet
feeling of a weary and wounded soldier coming back from war. Life does not know that I treasure your
amazing laugh and carry in my heart your inspiring and unbreakable smile,
Lucas. Ha!, life does not know shit!
And
with this back-stabbing falling on me like an obnoxious rain, I obstinately and
furiously carry on singing openly to the sun, even if I cannot see it through
the thick clouds of my tears. I come
back to life every day like the cicada does it after a year underground.
Life
entertain herself erasing me from any spiritual existence, she likes to erase
me in a daily basis, and forces me to attend to my own funeral, alone and
crying. I mark those days in the
calendar, but after awhile I forget them and continue living, singing, smiling
and faking life. Life has no experience
wielding her dagger to kill me. I always
survive and she always fails. Yes, life
should leave this job to death.
Lucas,
your mother has been sick for awhile now, but I bet you already knew that. Sometimes I feel useless trying to help with
her condition, and the only thing I can do is to as her how she is doing and
offer my useless help. This is little
consolation for someone who cannot effectively help. Please keep her in your great heart. I know you do, but I want you to give her any
piece of your heart that you might have assigned mistakenly for me. She deserves more room. I am already in the void, so do not waste any
precious room of your heart on me.
Please do not.
I
believe we will see each other someday in the cosmic immensity of the ether, Lucas;
there where the stars dance and celebrate our small existences, there were some
of us departed earlier, there were Papa, Mamina, Papito, and my abuelito Víctor
are now, there where our spirits will again dance and boil contentedly, just as
they did in the days when you filled all our lives and the lives of anyone who
cross your vibrant living path, with the extensive cloak of infinite love you
always protected everyone with, even including me. Simply Lucas, I miss you so very much.
Lucas Martino, you are remembered because a good character like
yours is the best tombstone. Those who
loved you and were helped by you in so many different ways will remember you
when forget-me-nots have withered. You
have carved forever your name on hearts and spirits, not on a cold marble slab.
The hardest thing I ever lived was to come to accept the reality
that my son Lucas Martino has died, and the hardest thing I have been doing, is
to live every day since that dreadful moment. And this is forever.
My ache throbs violently, Lucas. I wish the pain go missing forever, but sadly it
is here to stay. It builds and builds
until a day like today when the tears flow and sadness finds its release.
Perhaps
I will write you later once more, Lucas; in another blasting time when the
insane and angry magma of my spirit wants again to explode like a demential
volcano, like an enraged dragon, and with terrifying howls of ancient beasts igniting
between the deaf laments of my heart.
Until
me meet again. I love you Lucas, forever
and ever.
Your
imperfect Dad.