Second to last day... (From the Draft Vaults)
I’m about to leave Morocco for the summer.. My heart is really broken. I don’t really want to leave. I want to keep meeting people filled with wonderful hearts. I want to keep meeting people with unimaginable strength and so filled with unwavering loyalty. I want to keep meeting people so filled with love...
I’m writing this because on this second to last day I met a man. I don’t really know his name and our conversation was pretty brief. All we began talking about revolved around an instrument.
The whole class was rehearsing a song that we are going to sing at our farewell dinner tomorrow night. This man came as an accompaniment to the performance and he sat next to me. We began talking and I compared his instrument to the guitarron that mariachis use during performances. He asked me if I was Mexican and I was like yeah! and then he proceeded to speak right to my heart by speaking Spanish to me. We had good conversation where he mentioned that his wife was Mexican. I was impressed and kind of proud. I love being Mexican, you see.
So he began telling me that he spoke Spanish because of his wife and then he randomly told me that she had passed away. I offered condolences and the usual things you say to a person who’s lost someone. So, I continued conversation and I asked him when his wife passed away and he out of the blue told me that it had been a week since her passing.
He took me off guard. Literally. That was the last thing I imagined coming out of his mouth. I was dumbstruck and quickly filled with emotion. I couldn’t help myself...I began crying in front of the man. This overwhelming grief threatened to make a scene before an audience of about thirty people. It was crazy. Thankfully only some tears managed to escape but looking at the man before me, I couldn’t imagine the amount of pain he must be feeling. Don’t get me wrong, he quickly comforted me by telling me that he was okay and that he knew that his wife was with God and he added on saying that God does things for a reason. He looked at me with a tenderness that I don’t know how to describe and reassured me that he was okay.
It isn’t normal for me to grieve for or with someone that I don’t know. What made it even worse was how he was speaking about his beloved. He kept mentioning how much he loved her and he even told me that his wife and everyone around him kept telling him that he should not waste his time with someone who was soon to be gone. To which he answered, “Love is love. I’m not about to leave her..” His loyalty to this woman was more than I could handle.
After giving me a kleenex and making sure he said that it wasn’t his intention to make me cry, he left without another word. I proceeded to get up and go cry my eyeballs out without an audience. I sobbed until I couldn’t breathe. Then I’d take a breath and I’d sob even harder. I was shaken with so much grief and pain, I still don’t understand. This changed me...I can’t quite explain it still.
- Edit -
I had completely forgotten about this story until now that I came back to look through my tumblr. I remember this so clearly..and I resonate with it. All I can think about now is that I hope that man is doing well and that he is happy.
