My mother told me so

Yes, it is true, my mother saw him turning his back on us at a train station. I did not bother to ask her how she saw such things because I was used to them. Her dreams, her contacts with the spiritual world, all so usual no one cared much about.

This time, it has been strange, though. Seven days after this vision, I received a letter from him telling me he was going to another city in Switzerland to live with a friend. She was a great friend of his, they grew up together and now they realized they loved each other. There was no space for anyone else. Great! Congratulations! I have always respected true love, no matter if it is a passion or a long-term friendship that turns to be love.

But my mother saw more. She told me that no matter how long we endured being apart, we would reunite in old age. Fantastic! Who cares about old age when they are young? Old how? About forty years old? About sixty? About eighty? At twenty the world falls apart when you are left alone for another person. To foresee such a long future ahead is so abstract that it even does not upset you. As a matter of fact, she told me our feelings were deep, but he did not realize it at the moment. He was overwhelmed by family pressures on both sides, hers and his, and he decided on the easiest path. Deep inside, he knew it was a great friendship, nothing else, but life gets its own ways to disturb people, and the girl got pregnant.

My mother told me that this child was meant to be born. She believed everything is written from the early times. I am a bit fatalist myself but I never knew a more fatalist person than her. She used to say something is strong enough to happen and something is not. I can hear her saying: "This is bound to happen. It has its strength."

What does it mean? I don't know. Soon after this, they got married and I believe they had a pleasant marriage until some time ago when I heard they divorced. Their son must be around fifty! And life is still going on. How could I have imagined that at twenty?

Well, I got married too. I had two children, that are almost fifty themselves. And I am also divorced.

Last week, I received a long-distance call asking me to meet him. Beforehand, we found out ourselves on social websites and we wrote to each other. We sent ourselves recent photos and we managed to conceal our mutual disappointment when we chatted online. Finally, we agreed this is not important at all. We are the same persons.

Now, we have to face a different problem, the pandemic. We cannot go freely around the world as we had planned once. There is all kind of restrictions, both to voyage and to meet. The first impulse we have is to embrace each other, to rest in each other's arms for a long time. This is no longer possible. We have to see each other very carefully, although we are both vaccinated, not to kill ourselves.

What kind of destiny is this? it seems a curse impending us to be together. When all the social circumstances are solved, there is a pandemic that kills people by the millions.

My mother saw it would not be easy, not knowing exactly why. She told me not to worry, that we would have a happy ending. I hope so.

"You are very stubborn, both of you, she used to say. If you were more flexible, you would know how to behave and not lose one another. But you were like mules that would not move to make things easier. You loved difficulties. So, you got them."

The imaginary dialog continues:

"And also all those children had to be born, isn't it?"

"Oh, that is for sure. You were not meant to be parents of your own children. You should have other people's children."

"This is a mystery of life, isn't it?"

"Yes, life is mysterious."

"Not for everyone, I might say. Some people know exactly how to act from their youth. They build a simple and clean life, they study what they like, they work in what they choose, they marry and have children, they have family barbecues on Sundays, they gather for Christmas, and everything goes on naturally."

"Those are the lucky ones, the fortunate. Not everybody is like this. Please, listen to me, don't be a fool anymore. Seize your chance to be happy, no matter if you are twenty, forty, seventy, or eighty. It is always time."

"You know, Mom, I am grateful to you. I blamed you a lot for my bad choices but they were made by me in my teens when I was very unaware of life. Why didn't you tell me what I was going into?"

"Because it would be useless. You were going to do what you did. And, I must tell you, you needed to do all you did to become who you are today."

"Is this fatalism?"

"Perhaps, kind of. Perhaps it is letting life flow."

Even living to old age, I think I will never understand this. How can everything be decided when you are young and know nothing about life? I heard there are cultures where people marry at forty. I think, even so, they might make mistakes but surely enough less so. When you live adolescence in its full force, with all the doubts that upset your mind, all the insecurities about your appearance, the fears of not being accepted, the many opinions you hear from your true and false friends, you are much more vulnerable to make bad choices. "How can a club that accepts you be a good one?"

Last night my mother told me in a dream: "Please, become what you were meant for. Don't lose more time."