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The men of my life


“The most important change in the life of a woman when she gets married is her move from her father’s world and protection to her husband’s. The success or failure of this critical move will define the success or failure of her marriage. It is a very difficult and delicate undertaking.”


My journey with the man who became my husband started with an unconscious, untold and probably unfair comparison between him and the man of my life, my father. I was not looking for a copycat of my father in my husband. But surely, I was trying to find in the latter the values amidst which I grew up and I appreciated in my father, while, at the same time, I was hoping for the absence of the other attributes I didn’t like in the first man of my life. In all cases, my father remained the main figure around which I built the image of my ideal man. This image was tainted by the complexity and mystery of my woman’s character, logic and constitution and was inevitably biased by my natural love and emotion as a daughter.


How can I describe my father to someone who didn’t meet him? How can anyone see him the way I saw him? How can I be faithful to reality and equally to my emotions? Here is what my heart is telling my mind:


If dignity had to choose a sanctuary, it would choose him.

If courage had to seek a refuge, it would take shelter in his arms.

If goodness had roots, they would grow in him.

If tenderness had a home, it would be his soul.

If generosity had a master, he would be one of his disciples.

If strength and power ever needed support, they would lean on him.

If love were drawn from a well, it would be from his heart.

If giants needed a guide, they would be inspired by him.

A straight bust, a solid trunk, wide shoulders, an imposing head, a tough look, a light presence, and a refined sensitivity! This was the man my heart misses, and whose memory draws tears from my eyes. This was the man who received little and gave a lot. This was the man who left his parents to survive, suffered without complaints, and realized so we can realize ourselves. This was my father!


I want to see him, to hear his laughter, to make him happy, to be by his side and I cannot. I wanted him to live forever, and he could not. One day he went away and left me alone in the coldness of life. One day he departed and his chair remained empty at home. One day his journey in life ended and my journey in suffering continued. One day the laughter disappeared, the trunk bended, and the head bowed. One day the look became an empty stare and the smile froze forever. Since that day, love has transformed into a stifling impotence and the tears have retreated to burn the heart instead of the cheeks. Since that day, all the drinks have had the bitter taste of separation, the days have gone by, incomplete in their affection, charged with sadness, and the evenings have followed each other handicapped in their beauty and paralyzed in their joys.


Today, only the memory remains! How long will it remain? Will it, with the passing time, like all other things, go away?

No, with time, nothing will go away, nothing will be forgotten; everything about my father will keep coming back; his memory will become stronger with every passing day. With time, few small details inherit a perpetual importance and crystallize in an eternal precision. With time, the small words of yesteryear become immortal proverbs, and the accomplished little acts transform into universal examples of conduct. With time, we keep in a corner of our memory, the remembrances of these happy moments, where, within the walls of this house, a frank laughter illuminated our nights and a deep voice embalmed our brains with a soft feeling of security. With time, we come together, and we evoke with a touch of sadness and a great deal of pride our part of these privileged instants we shared with my father. With time, we weave together the words, the deeds, the stories, and we recreate, to the best we can, his magic presence that we constantly miss so much! With time, really, we love and cherish forever more the soul and the memories of this remarkable man that was my father.


In each commemoration of my father’s death, I raise my many glasses filled with the elixir that he fancied so much and I drink their content until the last drop. Thus, my memory is free from any obstacles, my remembrance of him is the clearest and the purest, and my reverence to him is the most natural!


That was my father; how I saw him, how I loved him, how he influenced my life, and how I remember him and miss him in every waking moment!


My husband is a good man; he is the father of the future men of my life, my sons!

 THE ETERNAL COMEDY

We are here to spend few years and then disappear. We try our best to enjoy as many of these years as our luck and will allow. Knowing more about life and understanding some of its intricacies will give us more chances to succeed in our quest for joy. The eternal comedy is a collection of ideas, reflections and observations on many of the ingredients that are critical to understand life.

None of the articles will provide the reader with any answer to any of the useless questions of where do we come from, where are we going and why are we here. The knowledge and maybe the wisdom the readers might get out of the articles, whether they like them or not, will help them in answering the most important question:
how can we create in our life more joy than sorrow and more happiness than sadness?” 

 UPCOMING ARTICLES: 

I decided to stop informing this section to allow me full flexibility in publishing the articles that inspire me on any given date. Sometimes, structure is a bad thing! 

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