terça-feira, 4 de novembro de 2008

Stop the Clocks - Translated into English by John Lyons

So, Dad, I'm going to speak while the blood is warm - mine, and yours still. Because you died seven hours ago, just seven, and already it seems like seven years.


Your doctor was with me and he said that he never saw a life force than yours. Such a goddamned will to live, contradicting all prognoses, shrinking cancers, increasing levels of God knows what in a way no one could explain. I told him that you were always like that, Dad, you always did what you wanted - and what you most wanted in this life was to live as much as you could.

And when you stopped breathing, you were sufficiently generous, given the fact that my mother put her hand on your chest to see if your heart was still beatng, to give her three more beats, before stopping altogether. Your heart did not stop beating in my mother's hands, your ex-wife's - it beat three more times, a present which meant more than any other thing you might have promised to any other person.

And when that immense tear fell into the corner of your eye, after you stopped breathing and after your heart stopped beating, I know that was when you cast off the armor from around your soul, and handed it to Life saying: "I never gave up; it was you that defeated me". Because you would never give up, Dad; you, never. And you taught me more in these 40 days than in 30 years. 

That I am like you, Dad, I always knew, and everyone always said so. But today, after dressing, combing, and perfuming your body just as you would do for a big date with some big-thighed fancy lady, I moved away from the cold slab feeling for the first time in my life that something REALLY NEW had been born in me. I am feeling you within me in a way that is different from love or nostalgia. It is almost physical, almost the opposite of a cancer, an unexpected spiritual metastasis.

I promise to honor you every day, Dad, to honor your name, your sense of justice and your taste for irony, honor your sharp and incomparable intelligence, your honesty and common sense, your weakness for vain and ephemeral passions, for a good lay, a good table, for real beer (because the others were only fit for pipe-cleaning), to honor your eternal motto "don't make it easy". But principally, Dad, I promise to honor your honor. Tooth and nail, forever and ever.

*

EHRE ÜBER ALLES

5 comentários:

Pragmática disse...

defeated.

bonito.

Nina disse...

Lele querida,

Como não tenho eu mesma talento suficiente, permita que cite novamente outro grande poeta irlandês:

Death

Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all;
Many times he died,
Many times rose again.
A great man in his pride
Confronting murderous men
Casts derision upon
Supersession of breath;
He knows death to the bone --
Man has created death.

(William Butler Yeats )

Marina disse...

Olá, tava dando uma passada... adorei o texto! =)

BHY disse...

lele, a gente não sabe o que dizer numa hora dessas. já tive minha mãe à beira da morte e isso não é nem um pouco fácil de se aceitar e sentir. mas faz parte da vida e, dizem, é o que a torna interessante, morrer. quisera eu voltar à infância quando isso era só um motivo para eu não ir para a escola. não entendia porque todos ficavam tristes. até hoje não entendo. mas aceito o que faz da vida seu destino. eu tenho certeza de que seu pai tem orgulho de quem ele colocou aqui para sentir por ele tudo que ele também está sentindo, não importa onde esteja. diziam pra mim, quando criança, que as pessoas iam para um lugar bom. que você faça de suas lembranças esse paraíso para onde o que amamos vão. com todo o meu respeito, fique bem. seu pai vai ficar também.

Lib disse...

Lele, nao sei o que dizer. Mas te mando um abraco daqui de Dubai. Vai chegar um pouco atrasado, com um pouquinho de cheiro de baunilha.

And to tell you the truth, I do know this feeling. It brought me to tears, this text was awe inspiring.

Forever and ever, ya habibti.