Welcome Feather, Hello Daniel

I can still hear the sound of your voice, your jokes followed by that rich laughter, your observations always filled with your kindness, your playful wit, and your incredible wisdom. Every conversation with my Canadian father, my father of the heart, as I like to call him, was a walk in spring, among trees and fresh flowers, a path that nourished my soul. It was no coincidence that he chose to manifest in human form on March 21st, when flowers blossom and the air is filled with their scents, when trees are crowned with lush foliage, and the energy of awakening envelops us like a cloak that brings us a smile, a graceful turn, a renewed trust in life.

As the sound of your voice echoes in my ears, I feel a pang in my heart. Sitting in the park at Punta de la Mona, I search for you in the clouds that cross the azure sky like a painting, in the leafy branches of the trees that give me shade, in the tiny, industrious ants I see walking by, and in the multi-colored butterfly that comes to greet me. 

Suddenly, a white feather lands gently beside me. I think to myself, "Oh my God...", and I can almost hear you say, "no, ...Daniel," followed by your fresh laughter. I smile... "Welcome Feather, Hello Daniel..." "Thank you for coming to visit me. I already missed you. You know, today I'm sad because I can't call you." The feather replies, "I'm here now, tell me everything."

My teacher Thay, Thich Nhat Hanh, teaches me that nothing is born and nothing dies, that everything transforms. When the conditions are there, a manifestation occurs, and when those conditions cease, that essence can no longer manifest in a body, and we say it dies. But in reality, it simply takes on another form. We suffer when we lose a loved one because we think they disappear forever, that they cease to appear. But in reality, they do so in another form. I realize then that I need to learn another language to communicate with Daniel, a language that goes beyond space and time and brings me closer to my true nature.
 

Thay says that a wave of the sea smiles when it is born, but it also smiles when it dies, because it knows it is the water and that by dying, it joins that immensity. We suffer because we don't truly know who we are; our knowledge remains very superficial. We suffer because we don't remember who we really are or who the beloved one who is leaving his body, really is. The part of us—the soul—that remembers who we truly are, rejoices at the wave's return to the immensity of the sea. But Marina, who loved her Canadian father so much, suffers from not being able to hear his voice anymore. Yet I continue to hear it in my ears. And if I am silent and speak to Daniel in the form of a feather, in reality... I can hear his responses to my stories.
 

This summer in Plum Village, a nun during a dharma talk told us that she really enjoys spending time with babies who come on retreat with their parents because they still remember where they came from and who they truly are. She said, "I love watching them and spending a little time with them, asking, 'Who am I really? Where do I come from?” I remember when my son was a newborn; his gaze was attentive and profound. He seemed to see so much more than my sight could reach. He would look into my eyes and seemed to read my soul, my true essence, and communicate with it in a silent, present language.
 

The disappearance of the body therefore becomes an opportunity to find our way home. I am so much more than this body, and Daniel is so much more than that body which has grown tired and weary. But my human part, which wants to grasp and hold onto everything forever, forgets the impermanence of all things. It forgets that savoring every moment and living the present with joy is the only way. And it suffers this loss. So I embrace this sadness. I recognize it. Daniel's transformation was the condition that made the seed of sadness within me blossom. I feel it strongly: I miss him. I miss that form. I want it at all costs, but I can't have it, and so I suffer. And all that is left for me is to hold this sadness and be with it like a child who needs attention, care, a caress. I feel compassion for my human part that is in need, that forgets that things change because human existence is this way: fleeting and beautiful. 

And I believe it is this way precisely because it invites us to be attentive and present here and now; to savor every moment and to remember our union with something much greater.
"What do you think, Daniel?" The feather, moved by the wind, begins to twirl in front of me, light and without resistance, in a graceful dance. And I can almost hear one of his enjoyable laughs. I smile... and I greet him with my hand and a tear. The smile is the soul's, while the tear belongs to my human being.