The Dreamseller_ The Calling - Augusto Cury [30]
A Solemn Homage
I WENT THROUGH THE SAME ORDEAL WHEN I LOST MY MOTHER. The expressions of sympathy, the prefabricated advice, nothing helped ease the pain. All the comforting words didn’t make a dent in the bars that imprisoned me. I would have preferred the silence of embraces or just a few tears shed at my side.
The dreamseller asked to be let through the crowd, and we followed. The closer we came to the coffin, the more the people seemed to be suffering. Then we saw a young man, near forty, with thinning black hair, a drawn and anguished face, lying motionless in the coffin.
His wife was inconsolable. Relatives and close friends were all drying their tears. The son was lost in despair. I saw myself in him and felt his pain more than my companions could. He had barely begun his life and had already begun losing a great deal. I had only just started to understand life when my father ended his, and then I lost my mother, too. I dined with loneliness and slept in my own sealed-off world, plagued by unanswered questions. God ignored me, I thought. I felt bitter toward him in my adolescence. Finally, in adult life, he became a mirage and I an atheist, a specialist in pessimism. Realizing the emptiness in this young boy, I couldn’t hold back the tears.
The dreamseller, seeing the boy’s despair, hugged him and asked his name and his father’s. Then, to our amazement, he turned to those present and in his deep voice offered words that shook them, words that could provoke an uproar: “Why are all of you grieving so hopelessly? Marco Aurelio isn’t dead.”
Immediately, Bartholomew, Dimas and I tried to distance ourselves. We did not want to be recognized as his disciples. The people had different reactions to his claim. Some went from tears to mockery, albeit well contained. They secretly laughed at the crazy man. Others were extremely curious. They thought he was some eccentric spiritual leader invited to officiate the funeral. Still others wanted him thrown out, outraged at the invasion of privacy and disrespect for other people’s feelings. Some of these grabbed him by the arms in an effort to usher him out.
But the dreamseller wasn’t upset. He said in a strong, firm voice:
“I’m not asking you to silence your pain, only your despair. I don’t expect you to stanch your tears, only the depth of your anguish. The emptiness never goes away, but despair can be alleviated, for it does no honor to the departed.”
Those grasping him released their grip and began to understand that the strangely dressed man with a heavy beard might be eccentric, but he was intelligent. The deceased’s widow, Sofia, and his son, Antonio, stared at him.
Then, with an air of serenity difficult to describe, he added:
“Marco Aurelio experienced incredible moments. He cried, he loved, he fell in love, he won, he lost. The reason all of you are sad—thrust into an existential vacuum because of his absence—is because you’re letting him die in the only place where he must remain alive: inside you.”
Seeing the people more introspective, he resumed his penetrating Socratic method: “What scars did Marco Aurelio leave on your emotions? Where did he influence your paths? How did his actions and words color your way of looking at life?”
After offering these words, the dreamseller said something that shocked everyone, including us. Once again we were ashamed of our lack of wisdom and sensitivity. He repeated the question that had shaken his audience: “Is this man alive or dead inside of you?”
The mourners answered that he was alive. Immediately, he made a comment that lifted them out of their despair and soothed their spirits:
“Shortly before Jesus was killed, a woman named Mary, who loved him, poured the most expensive of perfumes over his feet. It was all she had. By anointing him with her perfume, she was praising him for all he had done and experienced, and he was so moved that he praised her magnanimous gesture, while the disciples scolded her because she had