“Si Ilyas!” That’s how you always called me. Whenever you see me around, you will never fail to look at me piercingly behind your badly-repaired spectacles then smile, like you know all the mischief and all the secrets I have upon my sleeves. You are a physician by training and it does not take you long to know if we were really sick or if we just really needed some undeserved rest. You could look straight to our hearts and know how to properly take care of us. And despite of my decision not to be a friar like you, you prophesied that I will always be a lesser brother like you. How affectionate, you have always been proud of me.
Oftentimes visitors mistake you as a gardener or a maintenance crew. You are my definition of perfect joy. And up until the end, that’s what you are to me. How do you do it, Brother Hermie? Dying at 63, in a distant shore, only to be doing what you are called to do - to heal in a profoundly simple way with your presence. Or at least try to.
Smile from heaven and look down on me always, will you?
0 palagay:
Post a Comment