Thankfully today, I found out that what was keeping the computer from running, was one of Luke's DVDs that had been left inside the computer's DVD player. For some reason the computer was rejecting to let that same video run again on its screen! I don't blame the computer as I can run to the other room and not hear the same words and songs again, but poor computer, stuck on its base has no place to hide!
Last week I posted the Introduction part of a book I wrote about my brother Pedro story. After I posted it, I got a few suggestions for improvement and I implemented them today, so if you go back to read it again, you may find that the text flows a little better. But there is always room for improvement, so if you still have any suggestions, please let me know.
So today I am posting the first part of Chapter One, called Born of Angels. Each Chapter has two parts, one is the main story and the other is the dialogue with the Diary... If you didn't read the Introduction, you can read it here.
CHAPTER 1 (Part 1)
Born of Angels
Flight 3805, arriving in São Paulo from Brasília was on time and preparing to land. From the airport's second floor, I could see the airplane lights quickly approaching. As a six year old girl, I had to stretch my body as much as I could to see better through the big airport window. I remember how the airplane's windows looked so small from where I stood. I had a bad felling.
My immature mind tried to imagine how anyone could fit inside an airplane that looked so small. I was concerned about the size of the new brother that my parents told me I was about to get. Would him be as small as my Barbie doll?
I felt a certain relief when, minutes later, I saw him for the first time leaving the landing gate. A women who had already visited us on some occasions before was holding him, but her arrival had never been surrounded by so much expectation. It seemed like Maria did not have to use a lot of strength to keep that petite body nested in her arms. Except for his frequent coughing, he could have passed unnoticed as he didn't weight more than a small bag.
Maria was the right person to bring Pedro. She had quite a peculiar life experience herself, having adopted eight children, and some with health problems. She had a special role in his coming. Maria rescued him from a hut in the slum where he could have died in a few days, prepared him for the trip and brought him safely to us.
I opened my eyes as much as I could because I didn't want to miss any single detail from that first moment. I captured every particular from the boy’s body that was being transferred to my mom’s arms. She didn't have to carry him for nine months inside her belly., She was carrying him, a four year old boy, for the first time now. I thought that he didn't blend with my mom. He didn't look like her son.
Everything about him was different when I compared him with my biological brother Lucas appearance, and with myself. His thick, black and curly hair didn't look anything like the natural blond that covered our heads. Not even spending an entire year tanning on the beach would turn my skin tone into his. Maria told us that his ancestors were from Africa and from Native Brazilian Indians. My childish mind imagined his grandparents hunting with a bow and arrows.
But I did not have time to proceed with my imagination as we quickly left the airport into the night walking towards our car. Pedro needed to rest, his body was very weak. He coughed repeatedly and every time I heard his cough, my heart speed. His condition scared me as he sounded very sick.
Those moments will always remain in my memory. Cherished, wrapped with care, day after day, not because of melancholy or mourning, simply as a result of affection and respect. It happened a long time ago, but it still feels fresh. Some things are hard to forget. That night changed my life.
Actually, it changed my entire family’s life and also the life of the one brought by a jet stork. He had come to stay. That was the day a new beginning was drawn and my entire future changed. My life took a new direction, a new path. A lot of whom I am now I own to what I consider one of the best things that could have ever happened to me. I received him as a real life lesson; someone who would always be there before my eyes and from whom I would get inspiration for each day, for each of those days my future reserves for me.
The lesson that started that night at the airport taught me that happiness is a feeling that can go beyond the circumstances, beyond the possibilities, beyond the perfect ideal. It is something pertinent to human beings, but not to every one. It is just for those who open themselves to a new conception of life, where mistakes may be transformed into victories and hope is never imprisoned, even when there is no exit in sight.
Besides setting hope free, I felt necessary to set something else free: my memories. It was like if I had to free every emotion through words, paragraphs and pages; to multiply and share the gift I had received, so it could also become part of your memory too, through stories.
You will learn about victories I celebrated, losses I overcame and memories which I will never stop recalling. But not only from my story. Yet included here, it is blended with so many other stories. I hope that somehow it will inspire you to keep living your own story, which I am sure it is also beautiful, worth of being told, of being remembered. The stories that surround us and are part of who we are.
I believe that we build our story, consciously or unconsciously. Yet, when we take charge of the main role we are able to change it. Aware of our story’s construction, we can enjoy that role and transform it into the stage for our emotions, achievements and learning.
I can’t deny that a lot of what happens in our lives is the result of exterior forces not possible of control. To build our story, therefore, doesn't mean to place all of the bricks on the walls ourselves, but it means to be aware that they are being placed there, some by us, some not. While only simple bricks, even now we may be able to see the completed house of our dreams, ready, with flowers in the widows. What a vision!
And only then, we can enjoy this wonderful house, taking part of all its comfort and amenities and forgetting the hard work of building walls. The house that represents each one of us. The final story. In construction now, but ready in our imagination.
We all need, long for and pay to listen to stories, whether told by books, movies, or plays; they make us cry, they make us laugh. We stop to think about ourselves. They may be similar or different stories from our own. They may be the stories that we would like to have. Stories that through settings, characters and scripts transfer thousands of emotions, touching the heart, the essence of human life.
That night changed my life. It was the beginning of a new chapter in my story. Not the first or the last, but one of the most important for me. All others received its influence. My story has lots and lots of chapters, and who knows how many more will I live? However, I can’t forget the ones left behind, especially this one.
Closing my eyes I still see the beginning of this chapter and its main character. He appears in the first paragraph: that boy, different from me, arriving from another land, different from mine. He left behind a place he probably couldn't call home and people he couldn't call family. He was rescued from death and emerged into my life, as born of angels.
Book: A fight for Life
CHAPTER 5 (Part 2) coming soon...