I could feel it. I had no words to verbalize
what I was feeling, but it wasn't good.
The minute the bus stopped I got off and started
to run.
As I opened the front door an almost tangible
atmosphere of sorrow and grief greeted me.
I knew. I knew on the bus. Running home I knew.
Before my dad had even uttered a word, I knew.
My brother, my best friend, had died.
Suddenly I felt as if nothing stood still.
Everything was vibrating.
I was vibrating.
My heart was pounding so hard that I
thought it was going to burst through
my rib cage.
-Go see your mother, my father said to me.
Looking at the stairs leading up to the
bedroom where my mother was, seemed
an impossibility to me.
-Dad, I can't walk. I'm vibrating and everything is
blurry.
-Come on, he said and grabbed my hand.
Your mother needs you.
Somehow we got to the bedroom.
In the darkness I saw my mother laying
in a fetal position on the bed and crying so much
that everything in the room was shaking.
My father pushed me towards my mother
and told me to go comfort her.
How?
It looked to me as if my mother's sorrow
had weaved a cocoon of grief around her through
which I couldn't possibly get through.
Did she know that I was there?
I was still vibrating.
Maybe vibrating, I thought, can make one
invisible.
If so, maybe she couldn't see me through
her cocoon.
I got the feeling that seeing me was going to
make her hurt more, make her cry more,
and I didn't want that.
So I decided then that there are times when
it is better to be invisible.
It took me seven years before I could shed tears for
my brother.
The years following my brother's death are
quite blurry at this moment, but, I do remember
a specific moment when I realized that it's up to
me to chose when to be invisible and when not.
*
The Moment
''Winter is finally over and the snow gone.
The sun is warmer and all the leafless trees
are starting to sprout.
The roads are no longer danger zones.
And the black asphalt,
now free from snow,
twinkle, shimmer and glow.
Standing at the bus stop
mind somewhere else.
Suddenly a sparkle,
a tiny little drop.
Dancing on the tip
on a new born leaf,
how the drop glistened
on the asphalt strip.''
Seeing this blade of grass, this fragile
little green grass somehow managing
to find its way through layers of
asphalt, caught my attention and
revolutionized my thinking.
One tiny seed, no matter how tough
or infertile the ''soil'', will find a way
to fulfill its potential.
Good news: Our mindsets* are not actually
set in neither asphalt nor cement.
*the way we view and experience the world we live in
"Once your mindset changes, everything on the
outside will change along with it.''
(Steve Maraboli)
Your life is a reflection of your thoughts.
If you change your thinking you change
your life.
(Unknown)
about the images: top Water colour on paper,
some editing in Elements,
Sad Boy, texter on paper
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