So here I am again, trying so desperately to write a few words, but these days there is a big black cloud hanging over me and nothing can blow it away, ever. Death has finally come into my life. God, just writing those words feels so fateful, so final, so oppressive. I have always been amazed that for one reason or another, at the age of 53 I had been fortunate enough to not lose anyone close to me. Yes, I had lost relatives and acquaintances, but being related to someone does not automatically guarantee a close bond, respect, trust, or love for that person. Most people I know had lost someone close to them much, much earlier than me. As you know, if you are a regular reader, I lost both my parents in the space of three days at the end of 2022, and only a month ago, I lost my mother-in-law. Life has a cruel way of keeping us honest and humble. Dream but do not dream too big for this too shall pass and the wheel of time will inevitably render it insignificant and abandoned to oblivion, no matter how relevant or essential it was for a fleeting moment in the course of history.

We live and hope through the eyes of social media filters, cosmetic surgery, fitness fixes, alcohol, Botox, or anything that deceives us into thinking we will remain perpetually young. Then, one fine day, we lose someone very close and experience a rude awakening when we remember we are all dying anyway, not because with each day that goes by we get older and draw nearer to that dreaded end, but because with each loss we experience another huge part of ourselves dies in the process, until there is so little left that we wonder what is the point of going on anyway.

I do not know who I am if I am not my mother and my father’s daughter. I am here and I am everything I am because of them and without them it feels like I am not myself anymore. A grief counsellor reading this will conclude I am still deep in the grieving process, but the truth is this beating ache is not circumstantial or temporary. I know I will feel like this for the rest of my life. Our identity comprises of so many parts; so many sides to our story that complete the whole picture, but at the core of each of our stories whether we like it or not, is our parents. They dictate our DNA, our personalities, our looks, our fears, our addictions, our dreams.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day in Spain. Had my mother still been alive, I would have sent her a lovely bouquet of flowers to let her know she is forever present in my life, even though I live thousands of miles away from her. Now it is her and my dad who live thousands of miles away from me in a not yet discovered universe, but live they do. The void they have left behind is as strong as their presence in my inner most being. There are so many facets of me that are them. Where they go, I go too. Is it any wonder then that when they stopped being, so did I?