This image is for illustration purpose only
The last kiss
The last kiss
- Honey, Where are you? I'm going to work, I
want my kiss. She announced to the living room door already ajar.
- Now? I have yogurt all over my mouth and you are
already late for an important meeting today. You can’t miss your
flight. He shouted from the kitchen’s table entertained by the morning
news.
- Okay. See you later!
- I love you. Oh, do you have your keys?
The door was shut mid sentence. And yes, she didn´t
take the keys and he didn´t take the opportunity of a kiss.
*********
At some point we are so busy, that we start forgetting
names, birthdays, postponing that romantic trip to the mountains or to
visit grandma who is already past her due time in this world; we are leaving for later that major clean up in our closet, the one to
get rid of the pieces that we never use; the phonecall to mom, who has
been waiting forever just to hear the sound of our voice. And when we finally got a break in the schedule, we are
distracted by the morning News and the yogurt.
If i can properly recall, there was in childhood a
drawer with clothing exclusively to walk in the park on the weekends. It
was almost a crime to use a Sunday outfit on Monday and the penalty was heavy:
two days without watching your favorite cartoon. These were our parents
training us to think that tomorrow is more important than now. Then, with
the pimples came the fancy-expensive colognes used only on important occasions,
and when the beard filled my whole face came that big speech to buy your own
house (save up each cent just to have a place where you
can drop dead).
Most of the time things do not go as we expect, and
we could be much happier than we are if we detach ourselves from these formulas
tested and approved by the department of people who were born with
everything. There will always be a lame excuse to live tomorrow: dream of
a new incredible project, lose five pounds next week, start another MBA, buy a second home, do another
tour around the world, open another company. What we do with our lives
while death does not come?
*********
On that day, the husband dodged a simple kiss with
the excuse that she would be late, that his mouth was dirty (as if he had to
move the world to use a napkin) because the news was spitting a bombastic
revelation and he could not miss for anything, because he had the illusory
certainty that later his wife would be back with a splendid novelty: the
meeting of the work would have been a success. The long - awaited
apartment in Soho would finally get off the ground. That would open Cabernet
Sauvignon bought on a trip to France and was already giving web
spiders. And then, make love until the sunset.
That day never came.
The wine bottle was never opened.
And the Soho’s apartment turned into dust when her
husband received a call to recognize the body. On the other side of the
telephone, a voice, almost mechanical, from a person who is used to giving the
news every fifteen minutes. And on this side of listening, a repentance
that shatters and transforms us into pieces.
'- Honey, Where Are You? I'm going to work, I
want my kiss. '
A regret that ill. The guilt of not having
touched her lips, fouled the fuc*ing Sunday shirt. The inside question
that might have made that little gesture of love would have prevented the
accident. Or not, who knows?
'- Now I have my mouth full of yogurt and you have
that important meeting today, remember? You can’t miss your flight. '
Since the 'I love you' became the new ‘good
morning’ we have been putting feelings in airplane mode. It is missing
connection, truth, more eye to eye, more desire to be together, unmade beds,
more obscenities whispered in ears, weekends with popcorn thrown on the living
room carpet... because we never know when will be the last day, the last kiss,
the last 'Baby, I'm coming home'.
- I love you. Oh, do you have your keys?'
We need to have more creativity to love in a studio
apartment without getting that pathetic torture by the need of living in a penthouse. Understand
that no matter if we feed, clothe and give the best to our children, what
counts in the end is to put them in our lap and say how much we love them -
this is the real food for the soul and certainly the no need of a anti
depressive prescription in the future.
But the husband woke up in time. He ran,
screaming his lungs, and reached the happiness on the elevator:
- Sweetheart, here's your key, I love you so
much. You make me the happiest man in the world, did you know that? If
the meeting doesn’t go as expected it’s ok, we’ll be fine. I will always
be waiting for you to come back because your smile is my oxygen.
She smiled with her eyes, unable to
express such joy. She touched his mouth wiping the yogurt off his face and
said goodbye with a kiss of those Hollywood movies.
