From here to eternity

My dear girl,

I want these words to reach up to you, wherever you are, on the day that would have been your 30^th birthday. I can’t stop thinking how unfair and harsh is to accept the fact that you have gone so soon, particularly when we might have shared a lot of great moments. Moments like the ones we had those beautiful weeks of November 2015, where I saw the happiness in your eyes and the honesty in every hug and kiss we shared on the warmth of your beautiful hometown, which just for you I have rebranded the Latin American Casablanca. Perhaps that thought came as I was checking out of the hotel the day I left, when the radio played a version of “As Time Goes By”, but I still remember the warmth of Rio in my heart, and the warmth of your presence as we walked down the streets of Santa Teresa, we boarded the cable cars of the Bondinho and we spent some reais at the Lojas Americanas. I was surprised to see that many movies were getting a DVD and BluRay release there, and I blame you for making me a movie collector outside James Bond. You got me The Matador, Brothers Bloom, St Trinian’s, The Great Hotel Budapest and so many other titles that you got me into the “general movie collector” hobby, I owe that to you and I thank you for that, as I now enjoy owning the films I like on physical format.

I miss you. I miss your many mails and messages. Your “never ending kisses”, your “big hugs”, or simply the fact that have always been there. I always keep in my heart that beautiful birthday message you wrote me in Spanish for my 23^rd birthday, eight days after yours and weeks after we first started talking. You healed me. You healed so many wounds in my soul that I thought they’d never get healed. I guess a man’s heart can also be a sea of secrets, so you have put an end to a trauma that haunted me through all high school and the first years of my twenties. You know that, but I want to reaffirm how important you were in my life and how I’ll always carry you in my heart. You are irreplaceable, and I’m not just saying it. I mean it.

Fate is so treacherous that we were first separated by 1968 kilometers, and now we are separated by an unknown, immeasurable, timeless distance. I hope my prayers and my good memories of you, the ones that warm my heart since it became cold with all the tough challenges and disappointments I’ve been through in the past four years, can get you closer. Every time I go to sleep, I want to dream of you. And while I can’t remember my dreams clearly, for a reason I feel you there. I feel as if you were talking me, I feel as if you were hugging me, and I even felt that many times you’ve kissed me.

All I’d like ask you, if I can ask you for things, is that you can help me. While things are a little better than in the past year, I hope you can help me to find a way in life as I’m reaching another decade. I hope this one isn’t as tough as the other two. I don’t expect it to be without trouble or less challenging. Just a little bit more relaxed and less stressful than what my 10s and 20s have been. I don’t even expect a solution, just tools to make my road from here to eternity, when we’ll hopefully meet again, much more bearable.

That’s all I have to say for now. Please send a big hug to my grandparents, to my dad, and to Caruso. You’ll find they are wonderful people, if you have met them. Tell them I miss them too, and please send my apologies to my dad for being a bit harsh on him in the past years.

Happy birthday!

I send you many kisses, and big hugs.

Je t'aime de tout mon coeur

Nico