Lessons from an angel...

What I learned from my nephew…

Or my angel-nephew’s legacy through his tannie’s eyes…

They say that there are people that are close to us for a lifetime and they make absolutely no impact in the way we see the world or the way we want to be as personalities. And at the same time there are others that pass close to us like a ray of sunshine through the curtains in a cold winter afternoon and bring us warmth and hope unimaginable.

I had one of those in my life. Mistake….I HAVE one of those in my life. And most people would think that I would talk about a guru of self-fulfilment, or a teacher of spirituality, or a priest… No, he is a 3-year old, our ray of sunshine, that was borrowed to our lives for a little while but changed us forever not only with his quality while he was with us but also with his absence..

So what I(we) have learned and how I (we) have changed was his purpose on earth?

I am not sure… people don’t come with a manual, ultimate purpose and a check-up list with criteria to tick when completed. All I know is that it is more than worth writing down my lessons learnt. And I promise every time I feel lost these lessons can be my compass to a better me… Maybe that is my way to keep him closer...

Some lessons are straightforward but some a bit more complicated…

• To smile… with everything and anything. In other words, to enjoy life in the smallest moments…
• To see no language barriers… Because the language that the receiver of my love speaks is not always important. I can love and communicate with people that speak different languages… slowly but surely, I trust we will both speak the same language…
• To express my feelings and tell my “story”… To cry when I need to do and ask for help when I need to and show my vulnerability and beg for a hug if I need to…No, I am not going to be scared to share my perception of things (he never did). It is mine and the emotions are mine and that is good enough.
• To be a better parent… Yes, I listen to my kids more or rather I make an effort to really listen to them more. That means taking seriously every discussion and every thought and every expression of emotion and every action or reaction. They might struggle to tell me something and I might not have another chance to listen to them.
• To enjoy my kids when they are smartly mischievous… I take a serious face to scold them but at the same time, I burst out laughing when they do cute, smart and naughty things. He was smiling with that half smile and you knew he has been naughtily smart or smartly naughty…
• To say “I love you” to my people… To tell them how much they mean to me. And that is a tough one. I often forget, I often neglect and then I am seriously mad with myself. It sounds like a cliché but I might not have another chance to do so. Sometimes, I do it in my way with a “I am here” or “do you need anything?” and I hope they understand it. Reminder to do it more often…
• To appreciate family more… Strength comes in numbers and through rough times. And when life is normal we do not realize what we have around us (in our hearts, not necessarily physically around us). I often get irritated and upset for small things and I miss the essence of things, I miss the value of emotions and love. Appreciating means really valuing the qualities of each person in the family, it does not mean do not fight or do not tease each other… like brothers that when they are kids they fight and irritate each other and want to kill each other and blame each other, but at the end of the day, they love each other and miss each other…
• To avoid judgements if I don’t know the whole story behind… To look at people and situations with more patient eyes (admittedly I struggle with this one) but always try and find what the possible reasons might be for a person to behave in a certain way – not in a negative, suspicious way…rather a more inquisitive look with an effort to look at people holistically. At the end of the day, who am I to judge? That was not really his lesson per se, but actually a lesson from the conditions and experience…
• To love… with all my heart... Easier to say than do it… Love in its purest form, in its most vulnerable but at the same strongest form, a love that spings from the deepest of my heart.
• To love… everything and everyone... Even more difficult… To start with love to the other person when I only just met them. To think that every person is good, only good, regardless of how they look, who they are and how much I know them (or of them). And not only the people around me, but also the animals, all the creatures big or small… or rather, to love especially the animals – the purest of all.
• To love… before I understand...  Because then the love is not pure, it is a logical consequence.
• To pray loudly and proudly… To have an open communication with the Divine… nobody has managed in my life to bring me closer to the Divine than he did. Not always in a positive manner, not always in a trustworthy relationship. But the fact that I often doubt His existence, and His reasons, and His love, fighting my thoughts and emotions, making enormous efforts to understand Him, can only mean that I have an open discussion with Him.

And that only a little angel could achieve…

You are near,

Even if I don’t see you.

You are with me,

Even if you are far away.

You are in my heart,

In my thoughts, in my life

Always