25 Years of Grieve

It's me in front of that big and modern skyscraper. Only me. The strong sunlight reflects on the transparent glass and illuminates the park. That's it. Every day, I see it. But never noticed it.

Each step is nothing, but everything. The entrance door is convoluted of some people. Entering. The hall is big. The entangled of stairs and platforms devour my upper vision. How could I see it? Through today? No… I created. Our perceptions invent it.

I've never noticed. The smell of a cleaned place. But, again, how? How could I ever perceive something like this, if not in the month my wife died?

In the lift, transparent, I see the world; hear the two people near me talking; the sunlight filtering through the glass. Why is this feeling like a fever dream?

I work. But why? For family? They all die one day… I will die too. What is the purpose, if not for ending? The death…

I go home. I never noticed it either. Home. House. Is distinct. I can call that piece of rock in my hands, a home. But not everything is a house. All subjective.

My sons came to me. They say:

“Good night, Daddy! Love You!”

“Love you, and you too.”

However, what is love, if not a concept invented? The tears that I cry are a response. Reaction . Chemicals. The science of transformation.

My bedroom is transformed. Looks like nothing. There is nothing. Is without regret. Without tenderness. Without love. But, mainly, physically mute, without sound… However, looking from another perspective, sound is a process in our minds, waves created by reactions.

I look at the window. Moonlight spreads across the room. Then, I go to the window. I see the constellations above. Drawing lines in the sky, I create shapes and curves. But that's how I see it. Imagine, from another perspective, from another place, planet, galaxy. It all changes. What is it, if not a concept, so?

Too much subjective. There is no sense. Nothing is absolute; rather, it is the name we call them. But if it does not have a name… What is it? A day and night, is it? It exists. I feel it. I live it. I see it happening, materializing in front of me, probably.

I screamed and muttered, drunken poetry, looking for the shapes I made in the sky.

“The shapes I see in the sky, they exist. In my soul, not in my hand. Not in my mind, not in my fingers. Touching, does it make something exist? No. Seeing, does it make something exist? No! Feeling, does it make something exist? No! Processes in the mind… No! Rather, the soul absorbs it, and forges experience. A soul. Never replicate. Devoid of explanation. You may one day create a full human, but a soul… is my incomprehensible womb. Untouchable. Transcendent.”

I fall. I dream; waking up, then, I'm in a coma.

I wake up. I give a name to my problem.

The names I give for something. It's more than my command. The love who I profess is more than words; it is all an action. A move. Why? So many explanations. However, all of them fall apart; when they need to be factual, they are always speculative, always allowing a 0.00000000001% chance of being wrong. Nothing is 100%.

Life is an act. It can't be only lived. It's experienced. A consort of multiple things happening isn't enough to say. No words can capture it. No existence can summarize it.

The name I give is mine! But it is simple. I talk to the psychiatrist, and say:

“Words… words… never enough, they are always saying, describing, ready to sway the power of tyrants.”

“So, are you telling me, that you think words are empty boxes? Like... mere tools?” He said.

“Not exactly. The words are rich and full of their history... we are not capable of understand it in our limited times. So, we reduce their meanings to concepts and follow our own misconceptions. The word becomes part of a concept, and the subject that is affected by the word is reduced to it. Just the word and the meaning. It kind of loses its transcendental character.”

“I understand... So for you it's deeper meaning exists, but we choose to ignore it because is easy? —I need to say, the man is good at his work... He continued — “So do you too... right? I want to say that this is normal for a human. The surface, sir, is an environment that is comfortable. It doesn't challenges you.”

“Yeah, that's true.”

“But you know what's both interesting, and scary about it?”

“You tell me...”

“More deeper in the sea, there is sharks... They may want to eat. Hide in the darkness, they want to get the one in the surface by surprise. The shark hopes you don't swim down, looking for the danger. He fears that him may becomes the prey some day. If they learn how he behaves in the deep waters, knowing his enemy's, weakness, the game has a chance to be over. The predator, becomes the prey.”

“Wait... but if... if I know everything about the shark, but I'm not strong enough for to do something?”

“You call for help.”

I consulted the psychiatrist every week until he died ten years after. We created a type of friendship, I think, in a more stranger way than I wanted; but, in the end, he was the only close person after my wife who probably was capable to debate with my intrusive and confuse philosophy.

“Experience, not say”, was my last words to my oldest daughter, before I died fifteen years later. Ironic, the only ones that weren't short, rather, precise, factual, in the meantime; a time where I was still thinking, what is life? But, whatever, right? I experienced it… It's enough for me. Heavens… I will have eternity to discover it, maybe finding my wife in a time it's never too late to say to someone something stupid like I love you...