My friend Nora shares with me a song from a Mexican band, Maná, who have suddenly become quite famous in Spain. The song is called Bendita tu luz (something like “your blessed light”). I listen and immediately take to it. The music is joyful, and the lyrics romantic – the singer says about his new love, a girl with such a special light in her eyes that he calls it “blessed”; and about the blessed moment when they first met, and how blessed he is for having found her, thus putting an end to his loneliness. And he sings on, and he seems convinced that this love, this light that shines on his life, will go on forever.
I feel like telling him it most probably won’t.
As I drive I put the song on again and again, and as I listen to the singer’s words I remember other times, times of light when I too felt blessed, when I too must have been radiant because I was in love and was loved and – like the singer, like all lovers- believed that blissful, blessed state would go on forever. And forever was not really something that I could define – I only wished this feeling of elation, excitement, of living life to the full, would never end, and I am positive that I would have sung this song with all my heart, because that’s exactly how I felt – blessed, like the one I loved, like my life, like the world around me. Life was beautiful and I somehow expected it to go on like that.
But life has its own mysterious ways of teaching us the lessons we have to learn, and again and again I realized romantic love is the most fragile of emotions; it can be broken in a second by betrayal, it may slowly die of disappointment, or gradually change until it becomes something else, or absolutely nothing. Yet over and over I believed in it, again feeling the same elation and the same certainty that I was blessed, only to reach the inevitable conclusion that nothing had, after all, changed. Or maybe it was I who would never change; I, who had always dreamed of a love that would last forever, was doomed never to find it.
But having realized this does not mean I cannot be blessed with other loves, that may shine as brightly, or even brighter, than the kind of love that has let me down. I see the same bright light when I looked at my children, the greatest blessing of all; in the extended hands of my friends, my dear friends who never let me down; in the words of people I have unknowingly touched, somehow making a difference in their lives without any intention; in the comment of a reader who writes “you always tell such beautiful stories”.
Each of us have a blessed light waiting out there for us. Or maybe it’s inside us, waiting for us to acknowledge it and let it make a show of appearance. As I drive on, and remember so many happy, exhilarating moments when I spoke the same words I now hear from the singer, as I know exactly what he’s feeling and I know it feels so good, I look ahead and thank the universe for I have been, and still am, truly blessed.
I also silently thank my dear friend Nora and blow her a kiss. She has a very special light of her own, and I know this light has probably inspired someone special to dedicate this song to her. Nora is truly inspiring, loving and wise and strong. She deserves all the happiness in the world. As a friend, she always there for me, teaching me so much about myself, about ways to make my life change. On top of that, she sends me great music!
I park the car inside my building and turn the music off. Daydreaming is over. I go up in the lift and turn the key on the lock. The boys are home of course. Afonso, still wearing crutches, and Pedro, still recovering from the concussion he suffered last week at a rugby match. This evening, as Pedro is not supposed to watch too much TV yet, the three of us play Trivial Pursuit. As I watch them, excited with the game – we absolutely love it – their light shining as bright as ever despite the fact that neither of them is at their best moment – I think that perhaps this is all I want now in my life, the blessed light of small, happy moments like this. Moments of quietness, wellness, togetherness, of laughing together for no reason…one day, some singer will make a song about this, and I will sing it and forget all about that other kind of light, the one I don’t believe in anymore.
Note: after watching the videoclip, I realised the story behind the song is quite different from the one I imagined. Still, by hearing it only, it inspired me to write this post.
