Three years ago, on the eve of my birthday, I received the saddest news one could possibly hear: the death of a very dear person. It was shocking and unexpected, as he was just in his early thirties. He'd been suffering of a terminal disease for years, but decided not to tell most of the people that knew him. 

We used to be very close, but our life paths separated, and so we talked less and less, as it naturally happens with most people in life. Nevertheless, the affection we had for each other was unbounded to the frequency of our communications. I had spoken to him just a few weeks earlier, and he was as warm and affectionate as ever. He praised me for what I was doing in life, and encouraged me to keep following my passions and let my talents bloom. As usual, he had a much higher regard of myself and my qualities than I did; I loved him for always believing in me. I loved him for his boundless care and faith in me, and I loved him for teaching me how to love unconditionally at a time I didn't even believe that was possible. In turn, I admired him for all his qualities, such as his unshakable fortitude: he always had the heart of a true warrior. I understand why he didn't want everybody to know he was sick: he wanted to be strong and focus on fully and serenely living his life until the very last moment. 

Some say that death affects the ones who stay more than the ones who go, and I believe it is true. I couldn't even accept that he had died, for week, even months... I'm not sure I have completely accepted it yet; it still feels like a dream, or more like a nightmare. But whether I liked it or not, reality has a way to make itself manifest, to knock at our door even when it's tightly locked. In my case, reality kicked in in Dreamtime, and it took the semblance of a beautiful, loving little-girl that kindly pushed me to accept my loss. Months after living in a state of conflicting disbelief and grief, my soul decided it was time for me to reconcile these emotions and find the solace I was yearning for. 

@--------------------------------------------->> ❤️ <<---------------------------------------------@

It’s just me, my brother, and my parents. We’re all dressed up, as if we were attending a very important ceremony. A wedding, perhaps? It could also be a funeral. We are on top of a very high rise, with dozens and dozens of floors. But it’s also a very old building, it's all rickety and dilapidated. I don’t know why we are here, but I think this is our house. The rooms are exposed: you can see the interior, like in one of those small-scale models with no rooftop. Yes, I think it is a funeral. It’s R.’s funeral. R., who left us too soon, the day before my birthday. I loved him so much, more than he ever knew. Perhaps it is time to finally accept his death, and let him be buried, once and for all.

We are supposed to go down South, in a city where all his friends are gathered. Some of them are already there, they’re waiting for us. I take my clothes off. I don’t know what to put on, I don’t know what is suitable for a funeral. All the other people are impeccably dressed, but that feels wrong to me. Why do we have to put so much effort into how we look at a funeral? All that matters to me right now is my sorrow, my memories, all these feelings I have in my heart. So I take my clothes off and I decide to just follow the rules. I put on a black, elegant dress. The Others are loosing their patience, and therefore go ahead without me; they say they will wait for me downstairs. I try to hurry up; I just need a few more minutes. I run after them, trying to catch up with them. But descending down the building is not easy at all. There’s a staircase of sorts on one side of the building: it looks like one of those emergency exits you see in the movies. But it’s all broken; moreover, it’s unsheltered. The wind is blowing, it’s howling at me. Dark clouds are gathering in the sky: I believe a storm is coming. I try to climb down the stairs, but some of them break under my feet as I'm walking; I almost precipitate down. I shout from the bottom of my lungs, so loud they can hear me from downstairs; I believe I can see them climbing up to help me. But I’m too afraid to keep using that staircase, so I decide to try the one inside the building. I open a door and enter into the darkness. There is no other way but down. It’s a nightmarish journey: every set pf stairs is different, sometimes there are dozens of tiny steps, sometimes it’s like a tunnel I need to slide down through, without knowing where it will take me… it’s like a never-ending, pitch-black underpass, but all I can do is follow it all the way down… I can sense the perils around me. I can feel it: I need to hurry up. I am gliding on yet another ramp, when I suddenly feel that someone is chasing me: I need to run away. I try to escape; I am forced to jump on yet another ramp. But this one seems to lead straight into an incinerator. I am surrounded by flames, but surprisingly, they are cold, and it doesn’t feel that painful. But I know this is the end. I look around me, while the flames consume my body. It looks like Smaug’s treasure: there’s an infinity of golden, glistening coins and precious stones of all colours. An infinitude of flames... and what beautiful vision they are…

I am suddenly transported to another place. It looks like the same building, but I’m on the ground floor this time. It somehow feels like years and years have passed by, and at the same time, it’s as if time hasn’t passed by at all. I feel as if I was in a space-time singularity. Or perhaps in imaginary time. I know I haven't completed my quest yet. I’m living in another house now, along with friends I’ve met throughout my entire life. So many lovely people… My family is somewhere amongst them, but it doesn’t matter, they’re in the background of my mind right now. Our house is quite close to the building I’m in. There is a sort of night club on that same floor, one where anybody can go in to dance: it looks like a discotheque from the ’80s. You can do anything: dance, sing, try some acrobatics. It looks like it used to be a very luxurious place, a hotel perhaps, but one that has decayed through time, like the Grand Budapest Hotel. There is an old-fashioned concierge too; I start a conversation with him. He reveals to me that strange things happen in that building. For instance, sometimes the ventilation holes will blow out tremendous amounts of ashes, so many there is no way of preventing them from covering everything in the room. But nobody knows where they originate from. Now that he told me, I can also see it happening. Sometimes those ashes cover and lay hold of somebody who happens to be there. The victims look as if they were possessed by a demon: they start to shake and dance frenetically and expressively, as if they wanted to give voice to their inner feelings, to shout them out to the entire world. My attention is captured, so I start to investigate into it. I take the grill off a ventilation hole and slide inside. And that is how I find her: a little girl, oh, so sweet and pretty she is. Everybody though she was dead, but she’s alive! We’re overwhelmed by joy. Decades had passed since her disappearance, so everybody had lost hope of finding her by now. We are so happy, we hold her tightly, we don’t want to loose her again.

But something is wrong. I am talking to her, my heart bursting with love and joy. But she interrupts me. She looks into my eyes and asks: “Do you love me?” “Of course I love you,” I say. “Then please, let me die.” She confesses to me that she should, in fact, be dead, but her soul had been waiting for us instead. She’d been waiting to be reunited with us. But that was not the right place for her to be. She was living in hell, actually, in a sort of limbo, because she was neither alive nor dead. She couldn’t feel anything, anything outside an overwhelming cold and darkness she could harrowingly resist to. The Others are disturbed when learning about her condition, but yet, they don’t want to let her die. In order to do so, we would have to send her straight into the incinerator, to let her be consumed by those gelid flames. She wants to go on her own, but The Others wouldn’t allow her. And that is when she starts to grow spiteful. Or perhaps it is her patience that is running thin. And that is when she starts to deliberately provoke incidents inside the house. Pipes start to explode in the kitchen and in the bathroom, releasing the same black ashes we had seen earlier. I lock myself into a room, trying to get away from the blasts. I don’t want to be overwhelmed by the pandemonium outside; I want to be on my own and meditate on what to do. And so I slowly start to realise what is really happening. The others seem to be so attached to the concept of life. They refuse to let her soul go, because that would go against their principles–or so they think, so they try to convince themselves. But the truth is, they are simply afraid of what awaits for them in the after life, or better yet, of the lack of anything after life. They stay attached to the present even when it produces so much suffering, when it glaringly leads to destruction. They are so blinded, they cannot see what the little girl is trying to tell them. She has patiently waited for many, many years. And during all this time, she’s been enveloped by a thick coat of darkness–the darkness of the human soul–but she never allowed herself to be smothered by it. All this time, she had loved us unconditionally, waiting for us to find her. And now that she was able to re-embrace us, all she wants is to be allowed to depart in peace. I suddenly feel moved, I am overwhelmed by a sense of inner warmth, by a boundless Love. I feel so grateful for everything I have realised, and for all that love. And I finally understand that I will have to help her go. I will light up the gelid flames in the incinerator. The Others won’t like it, but it is the right thing to do.

[I am awaken by my cat, Mimi... little baby heard me crying in my sleep ❤️ ]

I've finally, finally learned. After busting my head time and time again.

Never, never ever close that door to your heart when you feel hurt and the other person is gently knocking to ask in... 

Because if you do, that door will never reopen. 

And you may never be able to find and open another door.

You might feel it's safe inside.

But you're just too scared.

And you're alone.

Can't you feel that?

And the other person may or may not try to find another way back to your heart.

And you will keep hurting and longing for that person.

Can't you feel that?

If you do, remember!

Mihaela C. Ionescu – December 2, 2016. 2:37 a.m.

I was about nine years old. Growing up in post-communist Romania, I was immediately captured by the bewitching, glossy world of foreign-language cable television (read: languages other than Romanian, Russian, or Hungarian) that made its appearance during the early 90s. So I slowly started to learn English. And Spanish. And French. Portuguese. Italian. German. I soaked it all up, like a sponge. Everything looked and sounded fascinating to a child's eyes, and learning was effortless.

But there were ongoing fights over the remote control between me and my (elder) brother. Bigger and stronger, he always ended up winning. So I finally decided to seek my revenge, and and I did so by composing my first poem (in English):

To my brother 

Roses are red,

Violets are pink,

Daesies are white,

And you sure stink. 

Yes, I actually misspelled daisies. Considering I had been learning English from television, I find it quite amazing that I misspelled one word only. And he didn't really stink; he just made me really mad.

I love my brother now. We don't fight any more. We take care of each other. Well, he takes care of me a lot more than I of him. But we don't punch each other, we hug each other. We live on two different continents, but we text daily. We exchange cute cat videos as well as nerdy scientific or political articles. We try to meet up as often as possible. So I now find that acerbic poem very endearing. I'm happy our dysfunctional, stressful relationship as children turned into a heartwarming connection through time. So I think the moment is ripe to rewrite that poem.

To Steli

Roses are red,

Irises are blue,

Daisies are white,

And I love you. 

Mihaela C. Ionescu – December 1, 2016