Warmth keeps the cold away.

My mother probably would chose the day she lost her son. My father almost certainly too.

I’m not surprised. In fact if we start to question ourselves, most of us would, eventually, recall a tragic moment.

“I remember like it was yesterday!”

Well so do I. Who wouldn’t? How could we not to?! I still remember perfect and clearly of all that day. All the confusion of not understanding what was going on.

The most vivid memory I have from 1997 (my oldest one) is to be sitting in the stairwell of my building, in my navy blue dress, while I see my mother stretched on the ground, crying and screaming out all the air she hold in her lungs. And our neighbors, in that sorrow state, trying to calm my mother (oh, my poor mother!). Quietly blaring how everything would turn out fine and how strong she had to be, for me!

Honestly, coming from a daughter that witness the collapse of my parents’ world, people who saw that same world of theirs be shattered and thrown violently and abruptly

Why the hell would you say such words to someone in such pain?!

(Seriously. Why?!)

While my mother was losing herself in the chock, I more neatly remember my nanny, gently swinging my brother’s body on her arms as if he was trapped a deep sleep. D was curled up in his favorite blanket, his bib had been removed and the blood on his chin rinsed. She was, peacefully, singing him a lullaby, like a mother trying to sleep her baby.

And motionless, I just stayed there. On the stairs. Observing.

I do not remember almost nothing of the following days. I do not recall being alone, neither my father’s or my mother’s presence. So little I recall of the intense therapy I had to go through after the fateful event.

All I had left from 1997 was this:

Someone caressing a lifeless baby.

Sometimes I even wonder if he felt this last gesture of tenderness or if he just sat there, next to me, motionless while watching an inconsolable mother.

Think of that moment that completely breaks your heart. You know. That moment you saw your mother crying. Are you feeling that grief, that heaviness? That moment that scatters your heart entirely.

My second oldest memory is already so much cheerful.

There it was. My mother, in her jeans’ jump suit, pregnant again in 1998 (baby I on her way!). She looked remarkably beautiful.

Happier days, right?

Right.

Either way, lets get to the point with all of this.

There’s a pattern over here. Generally when you ask someone the same question, that’s what people answer. A sad episode. A bad moment. A life or death type of thing. The day they lost someone or something.

A thing I noticed along time ago (especially because I was one of them until recently) is that people tend to define themselves and their major breakpoints in life by bad/sad episodes.

Yes. Bad things change you. They change your perspective. They make you question your life and your choices.

How can you expect to perceive the light if you don’t experience darkness?

Here’s what no one ever told you: You’re not defined by your lack of luck or by loss or any other dreadful moment.

You are defined by how you deal with those moments. By how much you grow. By which perspective you choose to see your life afterwards.

That being said:

The day that marked my life the most was the day I decided to finally start to be happy!

And I started taking responsibility for my choices, my life and my happiness. I fight for my happiness everyday. (Do you?)

So, think about it. If you had to answer again, what was really the day that marked your life?

P.S. I’ll tell you all about the journey back to my happiness 💙. Just Follow me (👍) and stay tuned (♬).