THE ENCOUNTER

“Truly, our day is made up of these small gestures… and our day is made even better by bringing a smile on someone-else’s face! All of us should keep spreading positive energy and smiles wherever we go… with whomever we meet.

We all feel life is so complicated, when it is actually not… if we live our each day as our last day!

Cheers on ‘Have a Great Day’!!”

These are not my lines… Nor is the heart that whispers them!

Seventeen-year-old Maanvi, my dear student, sent them as a comment for my yesterday’s post – ‘Have A Great Day’. I have already told in that post how a simple, well-meant greeting, such as ‘Have A Great Day’, can actually make our day ‘Great’!

Not only my day, but also my night went well, yesterday… Yes, just by inhaling and exhaling that positive energy which was there all in the air!

And, then, at night, Maanvi sent me that comment. I was moved!

About eighteen years ago, just after three years of our marriage, both, my wife and I, had been for a week-end retreat. The Catholic Church gives us so many wonderful opportunities, like these retreats, to re-charge our dwindling spirits, to re-align our lives, time and time again. For couples, we have the Marriage Preparation retreat before we really get into the marriage, and after we are married, we have this wonderful retreat called ‘The Marriage Encounters’. 

One week-end, we had attended one of these Marriage Encounters. There were many young and old couples – very, very old even… some of them coming there, almost, every year to rejuvenate themselves! And, there were a couple of Nuns! We learnt later, even they were married… Yes, to Christ, whom they  had devoted their entire life for!

On the very first day, the lead couple had asked us to write down just three most important compliments – something we really, really  longed in our hearts to tell our partners all our married lives, but for some reasons, we hadn’t…. And, we had to also write just three serious complaints – the most painful and the most unforgettable and unforgivable  grievances - against our partner that, all along, consumed our souls with pain and bitterness. It sounded so easy to do. Oh, why just three... there were hundreds, particularly the complaints! But then, what made this simple-looking exercise so challenging was that we had to tell it to our partner (in our letters) assuming – really feeling – that we had just a day to live here on earth. Yes, here with our partners!

We wrote, we tore, we wrote, we tore… yes, we wrote down our complaints and we tore them down… till we all kept weeping in the silence of that night! Some alone… and most of us holding our partners’ hands… Just not saying anything… Just being there in that pervading quietness of the night!

Maanvi has a long time to encounter this experience, I know. But, this seventeen-year-old’s thoughts had just the same message.

“Hey dude, life is cool!” Well, this is the lingo of Maanvi’s clan. “Just chill, dude!”

And, I think that's how it should be… Life should be cool… and, we all should – the dudes and dads – yes, all of us should learn how just to chill. In Life!

But then, what made this message

so cool,

and helped me chill – 

was the way she conveyed, 

with such depth and maturity:

“We all feel life is so complicated, 

when it is actually not…

if we live our each day 

as our last day!”

 

Does a seventeen-year old live his or her each day like that?

Eighteen years ago, that night, when we had just completed three years of our marriage – I was thirty-five, and my wife was 26 – we both did think about it, seriously… We had cried! Then, again, as most of us do, we also kept reasoning: “It can’t be… No, it can’t be our last day… We have years and years to live!”

Thank you Maanvi for wishing me last morning – “Carpe Diem”… Seize the day! And yes, for freshly reminding me that I am, certainly, not an exception. 

Who has seen the tomorrow’s Sun?

GERALD D’CUNHA

THANKS:
The image used in this Post is by Ashok Ahuja. He is a professional Photographer and a very dear friend of mine. He is also one of the founder members of The Dawn Club, and, along with his gifted-artist wife, Sudha, has been helping me, and the Club, right from its inception.