memories of losses

The first thing I remember to lose was a teddy bear. As a toddler, I guess I was always carrying it around, and that´s why I´ came to lose it.

I was at an airport waiting for someone. I´m not sure, but I think I was waiting for my dad. I was probably excited. Going to the airport was something I enjoyed doing at that age, I was probably fascinated with airplanes as all kids are. Anyway, I can clearly see my arms around that relatively big teddy bear. We sat for a while, maybe to have something to drink and/or eat, and I put Geroncio (that was his name, I remember) on a chair right in front of me. I can still see his round, dark, unexpressive eyes starring at me.

The fact is I forgot my teddy bear on that chair, at that airport. When I realized my arms where missing something, we came back but it was too late. Someone else has taken him away.

I felt sad. And guilty. How could I have forgotten my teddy bear? How can we forget things that are so damn important, so dear to us? And I did it not only once, many times. That was my first. The first time I´ve lost something dear to me.

I´ve lost books, and for a person who loves reading and writing, losing books is very bad. I´ve lost Decameron inside a bus when I was going to the beach for my summer vacation. And the book wasn´t even mine. I´ve lost another one, about the Russian Revolution at an airport in Michigan. And I realized, while I was writting this post, how much I still regret those losses. I realized how much I hate losing things I love and care about.

And the losses kept on happening. I started to lose not only things, but also living things that we basically lose to death; first it was my dog, then, years later, family members: granparents, aunts, uncles... And as much as I know that that´s the way life is, I never stopped missing them, and hating the fact that they were taken away from me.

I´ve also lost friends. I believe most of them are doing well, living their lives the best way they can, but we lost contact. It wouldn´t be difficult to find out about some of them if I really wanted to. However, I have this feeling that I shouldn´t. People change, I´ve changed. And maybe what we once shared has vanished as well, so getting together could be a huge mistake. Either way, thinking about those lost friends make me feel deeply sorry.

For the last few days, I´ve been feeling gloomy and I could not tell why. This is very strange to me, because I usually know what is bothering me or hurting me very well, that was never a problem I had, not knowing what was wrong. So, when I started feeling this way, I begun to think, trying to find out what was the problem. And then I thought about losses. The small and the big ones, so I think that was it.  I feel sorry for things I´ve lost, for people I´ve once loved, and that are gone forever. Knowing that didn´t make the feeling go away. But that was never the reason why I kept on thinking. I just wanted to understand. And now I do.