A Cup of Coffee

Brother and sister

They were children when we were children too. Their age difference was so small that by one of freak accident they ended up studying in the same class. She was my age, but as their family had moved a lot around the country, she was one grade before me. She was late, as they said then. She was in my sister's class, and became her friend. We took the same bus to school everyday. We played in the intermission everyday. We talked the gentle social language of kids, about prints collections, games and TV programs. The girl and her brother were with us from grade school till the end of high school.

Then each of us went their own way. I studied journalism, travelled. My sister went to the US for her master's degree, got married there and never came back. I mean, she just gets back now as a visitor. The girl and her brother started working together in the family business. Their father was a photographer, and he made a living out of developing and amplifying prints for advertising. We met just occasionally, speaking the gentle social language of people who grew up together, but don't have many points of contact anymore.

A few years ago, my company moved to a new building by the beach. A posh building. But there were not many places to lunch around. I discovered a deli, where they had a buffet with a good variety of dishes and pretty good service. They were some cheaper alternatives, but after some years writing about food, I got pretty picky. I started going there every day. And there I stumbled into the girl and her brother. Their father's business was close by. And they also went there every day later than most people to avoid the crowds, just like me. And I started meeting them again everyday. We greeted each other everyday. We talked about weather and politics. I met their photographer father, a short man with a huge moustache and melancholy air, which reminded me of a tango singer. Sometimes the boy's son, a very energetic 5 year old, came with them and made a mess. We met everyday from monday to friday, speaking the gentle social language of slight acquaintances.

One day two things happened. The first one was that my food stamps were not accepted anymore in that place. It became too expensive for me to have lunch there everyday. The second one was that I got robbed during my trek from the restaurant back to work. As I usually have lunch alone, I was afraid for a while to walk there by myself. I changed my daily routine from late February to May. But the other food choices were not good enough to my picky nature, and then the lady who runs the place called me on the phone to say that they were working with my food stamps again. And I returned.

It was late May. I was sitting alone at a table eating my food quietly, and I saw the girl sitting right in front of me. I recognized her father. I recognized his business partner, another aged gentleman. But I didn't recognize at first the tall, extremely skinny man sitting with them. It took me a while to recover from the shock. The boy who grew up with me had lost a lot of weight, a lot of hair. He was wearing a baseball cap. He had the unmistakable look of one who had been ravaged by chemiotherapy.

I still saw him everyday. The boy and his sister, his father and the business partner. I thought: "He is fighting the monster. He might still win. The treatment is so cruel that sometimes it is worse than the illness". We still met everyday. We still talked everyday. We talked the gentle language of those who know something terrible is happening, but doesn't want to disturb the other with unecessary words.

Last week, I didn't see the girl. I didn't see the boy. I didn't see their father. Yesterday, I woke up to a note on the newspaper. The boy who grew up with me had died of cancer at 41, my sister's age. At lunchtime, I hesitated to go to the usual place. I was afraid of meeting his sister. A co-worker insisted, and we both went. There was no one I knew there. But as I had finished paying my bill on the counter, there came the girl. We exchanged glances and in the same moment she let it out. "Oh, you know about my brother". I didn't think of what I was doing. I crossed the room and hugged her. We stayed like that for a long time. When we both stopped crying, we sat, and while I held her hand, she told me about his trials, the hardships of the treatment, and how devastating the disease, diagnosed in March, had been. We talked the gentle language of human beings that have discovered once more how frail life is, how lonely we can be in the beginning and in the end, and how the everyday routine of social duties can be suddenly and brutally interrupted.

In a world so cold, the ones we love provide the only warmth possible. God bless the girl and her brother.

posted by Livia de Almeida @ 10:03 PM