lucila soto

Ten years should seem like a milestone, like an important amount of time. Being human cycles matter… counting, adding up, the marking of the days.

And specially in these pandemic days. Yes, they are notable by themselves these days, they mark a before and after, the new normal of distancing, lockdowns and of giving new value to common things we -sometimes- took for granted.

But these ten years, well they make a difference but also no difference at all.
I mean to say that of course things have changed. I’m a mother now so I know fear as never before. I live in a different place that sometimes feels like a different world, so now I know loneliness as never before.

Don’t get me wrong, life is good, I would not have it any other way, but in ten years I’ve matured and that only means that I’ve been touched by all that stuff that takes naïveté from you: harshness, pain, solitude, accountability, ennui. The sort.

Ten years. It keeps coming back, as if it should be somehow bigger, or maybe smaller? Truth is Father, if I let myself go that way I’m still a mess. It still feels fresh and a void as dark and deep as the morning after you were gone. I love you, and love is eternal and I miss you and I will forever do so. Your smile most of all.

Being a parent has mainly made me even more aware of you, of Mother too. How you managed with me and how immensely happy and proud and valued and secure I felt all along my life with you. It was your doing. I can’t but to thank to have such a vast collection of memories to revisit time and time again and -during this ten year path- to understand and see in different, ever evolving hues.

I will always be amazed on how much you were able to give. Selflessly, unconditionally, naturally. And after ten years I keep on getting from you. This is the best legacy and I’m forever grateful. That’s when it hits me, you’re not gone, not truly.

And you know, sometimes I see it, that smile of yours, drawn right there on the lips of my little child.