I open the computer to write the most difficult article of my half century of journalism. I write it while my Brazilian wife, Roseana Murray, who has dedicated her entire life with her publications and her meetings with public schools in the poor peripheries of Brazil to the problems of education, is between life and death with her destroyed body. in the middle of the street by three ferocious dogs.
I wasn't going to write today. I thought she couldn't. But thinking about giving her to others even when she was crawling sick to school, I decided to do it. I know I am committing a journalistic sin, but having passed the Rubicon of 90 years frees me from all schemes.
At this moment I remember that weeks ago, faced with the avalanche of dramatic news of violence that floods the networks and global media, I wrote a column here asking myself if in the world in which the gloomy bells of new fears of a new possible world war, there is no positive news that rescues our hope. The column was translated and also published here in Brazil, a symbol of the thirst for a breath of oxygen of hope that the world is needing.
The pain and fear that floods me at this moment at the possible loss of my wife is being alleviated by an unexpected wave of solidarity, even from people I don't know. They hug me and cry with me. They offer me all their help. Among this wave of solidarity, I am particularly comforted and moved by that of my colleagues at the newspaper, many of whom I do not even know personally. We had not communicated with others for more than 30 years. My experience and my age make me discern between false and true solidarity. Theirs is being authentic.
Why is that wave of affection from my colleagues even shocking me? Because I am tired of hearing and reading that in the work camps the grass of envy and even betrayals usually grows without space for friendship and feelings. Which are arid fields of solidarity. Today I can deny it without lying.
As I write, I am reminded of the biblical story, of ancient wisdom, where it is said that one righteous person is enough to save the world from chaos. Noah was in the times of destruction of the flood. And today I am convinced that the world, with its traumas and cruelties, which are part of its existence, will continue to stand, it will be saved because there is not only one righteous person in it. They are legions. Most of them anonymous, those most abandoned to their destiny, who with their inner strength and fortitude, support the columns that no new Samson will be able to tear down.
I have always been a lover and student of the words that created the universe. I know that there are cruel ones, those of death, but also saving ones, a shield against iniquity. Among them, friendship and forgiveness stand out, the most sacred in the dictionary because they entail the mystery of the sublime and imperishable. Friendship is the most deified word in all literature since the beginning of the world. It is the purest love because it gives everything and demands nothing. As one reads in a poem: “When the ashes of feeling and the withered leaves dress the sun in mourning, from the hands of a friend, flowers are born. “Friends are butterfly wings on which to rest feet tired of heartbreak.”
At this moment, I feel harassed by the hugs of so many people, many anonymous, especially Brazilians who embody a strong religious feeling and who offer me prayers. They remind me of the strength of God. I don't know at this moment if I am a believer or not, if it is true that religious faith saves or alienates. I do believe in the faith in God of the helpless who, without it, would succumb to their tragedies. It is that faith that sustains the convulsions of the world. He is the god of the poet: “Outline of mystery in the gray fabrics of waiting.”
I know that it is not easy to believe in any god when our eyes are flooded with images of helpless mothers in Gaza with their dead children in their arms due to lack of food. Perhaps there is no worse hell in the world.
Thank you, friends, acquaintances and strangers! Yes, in this world that is sometimes cruel and sometimes borders on the divine, there are not only hurricanes of fear, heartbreak and indifference to the tears and sorrows of others. There is also the gentle and fruitful rain of hope that is nourished by silence and anonymity. Of free love.
A theology professor of my youth, in Rome, the wise and saintly Garrigou Lagrange, confided to me that for him, who was already closer to the afterlife than on this earth, that to the three great Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity, the one that cost him the most to cultivate in his long life, was that of hope.
Today I would like to tell you, from my new existential experience, that hope is not only still alive. It is what sustains, and will continue to do so, the foundations of the world. Naive? Perhaps, but without that hope and in this cruel moment, I would not have been able to write this page.
Follow all the information from El PAÍS América on
and
X
, or in our
weekly newsletter
.