Breathe
By Yohali Reséndiz
"I just want good things to happen to you," I said out loud to "my friend Erick" and now I understand that I also said it out loud in a lucky way so that I would also hear it myself.
A couple of days before life introduced me to Erick, my dad had passed away and I didn't know how I was going to face life without his figure, his words, his strong hugs and kisses.
And why not, once again after 4 months I have escaped to cry, in the same place imagining that the destination is circular. I parked and turned off the engine of my car, only now it is raining very hard and I did not put on the turn signals.
I am exactly in the same place where I met Erick only this time I didn't find him and he didn't find me.
Dad's absence sometimes overwhelms me and it's normal. I have had at least 2 bereavements in a little more than three months. What I must tell you is that I still go round and round in my mind that moment when after saying goodbye I saw a stranger in the distance getting lost in the vehicles and in all honesty, I never expected that life would put him in front of me again with a totally strange and different situation and that a few days later he would take him away from me.
I have to tell you that I never asked Erick how he knew that I had cried... maybe he looked at my swollen eyes and cheeks rubbed by the hundreds of warm and hot tears that rolled down until they soaked a part of my blouse.... I don't know, what I do know is that with everything and whatever you might think before Erick got off my vehicle, I knew that the gratitude and the emotion that comes with the illusion of the possibility of a new beginning, almost like when you are so close to achieving the impossible dream, have the form of a smile...
And here I am, stranded in a huge puddle with the sky, crying next to me and then I think of all those men and women who at this moment do not have the fortune of sheltering inside a home and are getting wet.
I think about what could have happened to them to prefer the street and I think about how difficult it must have been to maintain that decision and that they should not be someone else's business but ours because no one is exempt from meeting someone we love or that there is the possibility that we ourselves have at some point in our lives a similarity with Erick.
But then how can we help them, I ask myself.
First of all, I think a good start would be to greet them, maybe if you have a vehicle bring the jacket that no longer fits the brother or those pants that you will never wear again. And how about those shoes that can still be the perfect companion for them, or give them that belt that is still tight... Or use the points on the card to give them a t-shirt, what do I know, so many things they need and in reality, their suitcase of life is so light.
Maybe if sometimes you have the time, turn off the engine of the vehicle and dedicate a few minutes to look at them without aggravating (this is important) and understand what must be the intense suffering they feel to only have the street as an entrance and exit.
In these days of meandering the streets of "Erick's area" I have thought about how important it is to be present to them with a detail and without judging them and to have the courage and be able to endure the silences of that person to whom we will destine that gift.
Street people do not need us to rescue them from their pain but to start looking at them and recognizing them.
"They like the street because there are no rules" they have shared with me and yes, surely for thousands and thousands that was the impulse, however in the street they find something worse: death.
Where are you Erick? Where are you?
In these days that I have been looking for Erick, "Dagoberto" thought I was some kind of government worker. There I found him half seated on a cement bench.
- Are you looking for "Leti"? she asked me.
- No, I'm actually looking for him, I told him as I enlarged Erick's picture on my cell phone screen.
- Yes, it makes fibers. He was around here a while ago, I haven't seen him anymore. I thought you were looking for Leti.
- And who is 'Leti', I asked.
- She was a young girl from Puebla, she came here, about 12 years old, did you ever see her? She sold cigarettes although she was almost always "active" but the truth is that she got screwed on the other side of the bridge and (Dagoberto put his hands to his neck and squeezed it).
In this search, the street has reminded me that love makes us feel happy, but love can also make us intensely sad.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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