The sound of your voice still resonates strongly within me, your deep laughter that followed your jokes, your always kind observations, your playful wit, and your incredible wisdom. Every conversation with my beloved father was like a springtime stroll among trees and fresh flowers, a path that nourished the soul. It was no coincidence that you appeared in human form on March 21st, when flowers bloom and the air is filled with their fragrance, when the trees burst into leafy canopies and the energy of awakening envelops us like a blanket, bestowing upon us a smile, a dance step, a renewed faith in life.
As the sound of your voice echoes in my ears, I feel a knot in my heart. Sitting in the park at Punta de la Mona, I search for you among the clouds that paint the blue sky, among the fronds of the trees that shade me, among the industrious little ants that stroll by, in the butterfly of a thousand colors that comes to greet me. Suddenly, a white feather gracefully alights beside me. I think, "Oh my God..." and I seem to hear you... "No... Daniel," followed by your fresh laughter. I smile... "Welcome, Feather. Hello, Daniel... Thank you for coming to visit me. I've missed you. You know, I'm sad today because I can't call you." The feather replies, "I'm here, now. Tell me."«
My teacher Thich Nhat Hanh teaches me that nothing is born and nothing dies, that everything transforms. When the conditions are right, a manifestation occurs, and when those conditions cease, that essence can no longer manifest in a body and is said to die, but in reality, it simply takes on another form. We suffer when we lose a loved one because we think they disappear forever, that they cease to appear. But in reality, they do so in another form. So I realize that I need to learn another language now in order to communicate with Daniel, a language that transcends space and time and brings me closer to my true nature.
Thay says that a wave smiles when it is born, but it also smiles when it dies, because it knows it is water and that, in dying, it joins that immensity. We suffer because we don't know who we truly are; our knowledge remains very superficial. We suffer because we don't remember who we are or who the loved one is who leaves their body. The part of us, the soul, that remembers who we truly are, rejoices at the wave's return to the vastness of the sea. But Marina, who loved her Canadian father so much, suffers because she can no longer hear his voice. And yet, I still feel it in my ears. And if I am silent and speak to Daniel, in the form of a pen, actually… I can hear his answers to my stories.
This summer at Plum Village, a nun told us during a dharma talk that she loves spending time with the babies who come on retreat with their parents because they still remember where they came from and who they truly are. «I love watching them and spending time with them,» she said, «as I ask, »Who am I really? Where do I come from?’” I remember when my son was a newborn; his gaze was attentive and profound, he seemed to see far more than my eyes could grasp. He would look into my eyes and seem to read my soul, my true essence, and communicate with it in a silent, present language.
The disappearance of the body thus becomes an opportunity to find the way back home. I am so much more than this body, and Daniel is so much more than that body that faded away, tired and exhausted. But my human side, which wants to cling to and hold onto everything forever, forgets the impermanence of everything, forgets to savor each moment and live the present with joy. And it suffers this loss. Then I embrace this sadness, I acknowledge it. Daniel's transformation was the condition that made that seed of sadness within me blossom. I feel it strongly, my sadness; I miss Daniel. I miss that form. I want it at all costs, I can't have it, I suffer. And all that's left for me is to embrace this sadness and be by its side like a child who needs attention, care, a caress. I feel compassion for my human side that needs it, that forgets that things change because human existence is like that: fleeting and beautiful. And I believe it is precisely because it invites us to be attentive and present here and now; to savor every moment and remember our union with something much bigger.
«"What do you think, Daniel?" The feather, stirred by the wind, begins to flutter before me, light and effortless, in a graceful dance. And I think I hear one of his hearty laughs. I smile… and wave to him, a tear in my eye. The smile is the smile of the soul; the tear is from my human being.
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