LETTER TO PATRICIA (my teacher´s daughter)

   Nothing I can say now is going to heal your pain. All the mothers are unique and special for their children, and for that reason, they are unforgettable. With their strengths and weakness, with their lights and shadows, with their moments of love and moments of tenderness. Each mother has knitted scarves of stars to shelter our souls before let us go to school. Everyone has prepared sandwiches of courage and has gotten them into our schoolbags of fears. Everyone has recited magical spells against the monsters of our nightmares, has caught our hands in a storm of coughs and sneezes.
Every mother, Patricia, has sewn our broken wings after a fight with our best friends, has found a solution to a math problem, solved a complicated enigma (does he love me, doesn´t he love me?) that kept awake.

 Every mother has has put a glass of warm milk on the table, dried up millions of tears. And she has darned, unhurried, large holes in our hearts. That´s all what you know about yours.

   But let me tell you a bit about the lady who shared your whole life and spent many years in mine. Conchita Gimeno, my teacher.    That is, My Teacher, in large print, emphatic capital letters. Because you know, Patricia? I have been fortunate to have three wonderful teachers in my life: Pilar Cañete, Julita Díaz and Conchita Gimeno.  I loved all of them very much, all I still love them a lot. And I feel  great love, great respect and immense gratitude for the three. I always remember your mother´s encouraging smile, her contagious joy.

As I wrote a few years ago, she was sweet and good to us, but firm and serious at the same time. She had that rare patience that makes us more bearable our failures. The patience to explain the things without altering, even when we had got confused of the development of the class.

   Thanks to your mother, Patricia, I learned to enjoy the simple things, to value the small details, to smile through my tears, to thank life for every second of happiness. I learned to be juster and more humane. It also learned to add flowers and embroidery dreams, to try to put myself in someone else's place when I feel hurt, to celebrate the big and small achievements of my friends as much as my own.

  I also received a wonderful, a rare and precious gift from her. She gave me an island full of treasures that no one has ever been able to steal me. An island where I can shelter my fear and sadness, my laughter and my joy, my light and my hope.An island where fairies and elves still inhabit, where there are princes and princesses who sleep, and wake up after a hundred years, an island full of stories that sound with her voice and the voice of many of my old teachers. She gave me the passion for reading. I would need  thousands of lives to live thousands of books. So my teacher was. Your mother, Patricia."She loved you very much," you say hugging me, before entering the church. "So I did - I reply-. She was very special. " All the mothers are like this to their children. But yours was not only special for you. She will always be unique and special for all who were fortunate to have her as a teacher. For all those who were her students.
    Nothing I can say now is going to heal your pain, I know. But I needed to try to wrap up your soul and put you a strip of affection. As she always did with us when we were children. As she has always done with the adults we are now.
   You are not alone, Patricia. You'll never be alone, believe me. One day you'll realize that those who we loved and loved us, are still here. They are always with us, because they never go completely. It is because hey are anchored in our hearts. The most beautiful thing we can do for them is to remember them with love, serenity and tenderness. I know  you will do it.
   Take care, Patricia. She is looking at you. So, take care as much as she'd take care of you. All for her smile her sweet smile, eternally.
   A big hug,

   Blanca