A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.

My dear friend,

I am writing to you cause I feel you need a helping hand – even though I may be miles away...

It’s been days, now, that I am thinking of your sensitive heart and I am wondering what may have happened to you. I don’t know, but I won’t ask. I am just going to sit next to you, imaginarily, and tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a sweet girl with a happy heart named Katie. She was born happy and nature endowed her with kindness and affection. Growing up in an environment full of love and understanding, Katie realised that she could get easily hurt by people who were clumsy in their behaving... Nevertheless, she wanted to grow wiser; so she sailed away to a remote island. There, she met a lot of different people from diverse tribes and nations. She started learning habits from other cultures and her awareness of diversity increased.  She understood that people are very different and that many times one should make the effort and give the other person the chance to explain him or herself.

Everything was going well and Katie started feeling like home! But at that particular time, Katie got hurt from a person, whom she perceived as a friend. And this happens in life... But Katie had a sensitive heart and could not forget that incident. She started becoming less sociable; trying to focus only on her purpose of being in that island, that is, to become wiser. She needed a sign...something to make her happy again.

As Katie could not see any sign soon, she decided to leave the island. Before she was about to board the ship, that would bring her back to her motherland, she stopped for a moment to think all the good and bad memories she was taking with her, as lessons for life.

Saudade

Saudade:
a Portuguese and Galician word for a feeling of nostagic longing for something or someone that one was fond of and which has been lost. It often carries a fatalist tone and a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never really return. It was once described as "the love that remains" or "the love that stays" after someone is gone. (source)

.   .   .  

Preethi had to leave back to India as her Postgraduate Visa was due. She first arrived in Uk three years ago to study a Master's degree. She did her Master's and at the same time she created a whole new life here..friends, job, appartment.

Have you ever experienced the departure of someone special for you?

Nadia left,as well, two years ago. She decided to go back to Jordan not because of Visa requirements (she is half Brittish anyways), but because she wanted to go back where she was born. She, too, left a whole life (12 years) and had to start all over... new friends, job, house.

It is always hard, isn't it?

One of the most difficult processes one has to pass is to say goodbye to a very good friend. And it is hard for both the person who leaves and the one who stays back. The hardest part is not that specific moment of 'goodbye' that can be easily faked behind a 'statuesque' smile. It's the conceptualisation that nothing will be the same again..and this is a whole process. Allow me to explain...