Mara

 Today is Friday, it's one of those days that you just want to spend time at home, it's raining, it's cold, and I have to pick up my daughter in a little while. 

Yesterday, something happened that filled me with great sadness, a person that was dear to me passed away. Passed away unexpectedly and not in her time. She was young, very young, too young to die. 

This person was close to me, we've gotten closer my last year of working for the company that we both represented and she was an integral part of the process I went through that ended up me leaving that said company. 

When I say that she was an integral part of that process, I mean it in a good way. The tough conversations we both had where I've expressed openly my disgust and sadness by the way everything went down after so many years of working in the same company. She always asked me every time we reached a dead end, what does it make you feel happy? What do you want to do with your life? Think about your daughter, think about you! 

Going through that process it made me realize that I had an ally and not an enemy, other people close to us told me that she was concerned about me, what would be my near future, would I find a job? Would I be ok? After finding out about that I told her that everything would be ok and that I was not afraid of going through this. 

Flash forward a few months, the last time I had an interaction with her was on March 31st, 2020, during confinement here in Madrid. I asked her how she and her family were doing, she replied that everything was good and everyone was healthy. She mentioned how things were going so bad in Italy, her home country and she asked about my mother and how was she doing in the residency she was staying, I told her that my mother was in Switzerland and she said, ...well Switzerland, residences in Switzerland are.....swiss, and that they will be very careful with her. 

I'm so sad right now! imagining that she got caught in this, how is it possible? 

I've heard that she was hospitalized but nothing ever made me think that it would end up this way. 

All of us that weren't directly or closely impacted by this pandemic don't seem to grasp the gravity of this situation, even though numbers of thousands of people that have lost their lives to the virus is spat on the news every day. 

The last time I saw her was on November 7th of 2019 and we hugged, it was a long hug, it was a friendly hug.

How many times do we think that a hug, a smile, a tear,  a laughter, the kiss of someone you know will be the last thing you'll have from that person?

This is my last memory of her. 

She is no longer with us, but she will be in our hearts and minds forever.

Ciao Mara!