There have always been reflections that compare our passage in this world to a journey. The best part of the journey is not knowing what awaits us at the next stop, while the ones already passed certainly taught us something and some emotions.
In this regard, Jorge Luis Borges wrote this significant phrase:
Every person who passes through our life is unique. He always leaves a little of himself and takes a little of us away. There will be those who have taken away a lot, but there will never be those who have left nothing.
But, it is also worth remembering that something left behind can be a mark or a scar. Scars symbolize pain, suffering, open wounds, and emotions that need to be cleaned and healed. They are signs that we did not choose to have and that remind us of pain that we could have avoided. Instead, when we say that someone has left their mark, it means that we have indelible traces on our skin and in our memory, which make us remember moments of love, teaching, and growth.
There are people who make sense of everything, even things that previously had no importance to us. They are authentic people, who mark a moment in our lives, who leave an indelible mark in our memories.
Some people have sent us some emotion, enriched us culturally or spiritually, and will remain in our memory forever. They are people who have offered us another vision of the world, and who have helped us ask questions about our past, present, and future.
Often these people have appeared inadvertently in our lives and have remained there longer, transmitting knowledge or feelings such as friendship, love, trust, and more. Others remained with us only for a short period of time, just long enough perhaps to save us from a labyrinth. Still others have always been there, like the family: they are the ones who teach us in particular the value of memories, the power of affection, and human warmth.
One day perhaps we will even remember the people that our hearts had removed, because, for example, they were a source of pain, who disappointed us, hurt us, or surprised us negatively.
They too had come for a reason: to teach us the consequences of negative behaviors, so that we don’t make the same mistake. They too are, therefore, fundamental to understanding how we do not want to be; we thus understand how to behave in the opposite way to them.
Just like the negative experiences and pain they bring with them, these people are also in some way life teachers. They will remain in the past and their echo will help us in the future, even if we find it hard to believe it.
Our life is also made up of fragments of other people’s lives. Over the course of a day, our destiny intersects with that of a multitude of people: some go completely unnoticed, and others are destined to transform into important facets of our lives. They are tiny fragments of time and shared events which, from the point of view of emotional value, have their weight.
Year after year we add up the fleeting greetings exchanged at bus stops, the meetings at concerts, the reflections of another soul in a tear, the trust gained over a coffee, lessons, and decisions that have made us grow.
And learning from all this depends on us: we are the ones who have to understand why a person suddenly appears and decides to make himself known, even if just for a minute.
People who have entered our lives, both in joy and in pain, who we will never forget, who we could define (perhaps selfishly) as “our people”, those who made us live, and it is thanks to them that we are what we are today.
Any comment is appreciated and can animate a discussion.
