Memory of the Father.

The one who came back to the door once more.

There are days that never pass.

No matter how many years, ten years, a lifetime pass: there are moments that move into us, and from then on the one we lost lives on in us.

Today is such a day.

In the morning everything starts the same as usual, but inside there is a quiet vibration, a lack that hurts as much as it is warm.

Because where there is lack, there was love.

And great love.

Dad's last night was not quiet. I rushed. He could barely breathe.

I lifted him, held him, took him in my arms, just as he had taken me in his arms when I was a child.

It was the last hug, and I didn't know it then, but in reality we were both saying goodbye to each other.

The walls of the hospital - which should give us comfort - separated us that day.

The world closed around him, and around us.

But what is really important cannot be closed:

Love does not respect closed doors.

The morning shift, the promises, the waiting, all seem like paper rustling compared to

what actually happened at nine thirty.

Because there is something that the world did not hear that day:

Dad got up.

He went out into the hallway.

He looked for us..

Once again.

One last time.

Maybe he felt that we were somewhere nearby, that we were waiting, that we were hoping for him.

He had so much strength, so much love, to try to come back to us.

Sometimes the soul is bigger than the body.

And that day it was his soul that went on, that set off once more towards the door where we would have stood if they had let us in.

He was on his way to us when he collapsed.

He did not go alone.

His heart still belonged to us.

And although his body remained there,

his soul found its way – because he lives in us ever since:

in every memory, in every vibration, in every sentence we learned from him.

The wedding ring was stolen from his finger.

The necklace was taken too.

But what was valuable in it cannot be stolen.

Because it was not made of gold, but of a lifetime of love.

The real legacy is not what we wear, but what remains within us.

Dad's story today is not about loss, but about the fact that: there is a love that is stronger than doors, rules, distance and even death.

Today we light a light for those who no longer sit next to us, but are there in every breath we take.

For those who have left but have not left.

For my Father, who on that last dawn set out for us once again, because he knew we were there.

And he knew we loved him.

Today we commemorate him.

And everyone who lives on only in our hearts.

May his memory be blessed.

And may his absence be easy, because he was made of love, and he will return there.