The death we don’t understand

(Sunday Poetry Corner) We all know we’re going to die, yet most people consciously choose to shut their eyes to that reality, trying to ignore it. When death takes a loved one, we feel the sorrow of selfishness because they’ll no longer be with us, without considering that the dear person who has left might be far better off and happier from that moment on. As someone reaches old age, whether they like it or not, they gradually grow accustomed to the nearing day of goodbye, though—for reasons they can’t quite explain—they hope it remains as far off as possible. When an elderly person passes, others will say, “Well, they were very old,” and that certainty softens their grief. But what happens when the one who dies is young? Here, the trauma is greater because we all think, “They had so much life ahead of them, so much left to do,” without pausing to consider that perhaps, in those few years, they had already fulfilled the earthly mission entrusted to them. And I’ll take it a step further: what happens when a child dies? Here, there are no answers, and so I won’t offer any… only the reminder of the certainty that, in the end, they’ll be better off there than here.
 
Today, I found myself reflecting on all of this as I recalled the death of a seven-year-old girl, a playmate of my granddaughter at the park after school. What can be said about such a death? Or rather, what can be felt about it? I’ve expressed it this way, especially remembering the things she used to tell me—how she was learning to play the ukulele, how she loved minerals and discovering so much about life… But she’s gone, and we’ve had to settle for her memory.
 

A UKULELE IN HEAVEN
 
She arrived on Christmas Day.
It had to be that day!
She was light, pure and divine,
taking form on Earth
to draw near to us
and show us the way
to true life.
 
With her example in seven years,
it should be enough, if only we see
beyond the material.
It hurts to lose friends,
even more so parents and children,
and yet we depart
without having asked to.
 
They’ll say she was just a girl,
that she had ahead of her
a thousand plans in her life,
but she left us,
leaving behind as her legacy
her kindness and her smile.
 
That’s why she came, to tell us
to forget our quarrels,
our obsession with this world,
forgetting that life
is what awaits beyond,
it’s what Sandra breathes
from today, in harmony.
 
To the celestial orchestra
a new soloist arrives,
her ukulele will resound
from now on in the memory
of those of us fortunate enough
to have shared her joy.
 
(In memory of my friend Sandra Pino. She was barely seven years old…)

A chance encounter will take him far away, on a thrilling adventure full of action and emotion that will change his life... but also the lives of everyone around him…
“Fleeing into silence”: https://a.co/d/7SUfVb3