Dear grandson: When I think of you, and I do often, I lose track of time and I cannot believe that a year has passed since that fateful day, because in my mind those images are still engraved and the memories of those terrible hours we were waiting for the resurgence of a life, which unfortunately no longer existed, come back. We always had hope, and hope became despair.

Now I am going back and trying to change, not forget, those images for those of your short and happy life of 18 years. That love for sport, those gestures of anger when you did not win the race, that desire to excel, that respect and help for your teammates, that nobility in all your actions and so many things that could be said about you. These pass through my mind like a movie. These rebellious tears that I can’t stop confuse me, because I don’t know if they are of joy at seeing you, or of pain for having lost you. And I ask myself, how long is this going to last?

There are friends with good intentions who tell me that we have to be strong to continue living with this pain, waiting for time to heal the wounds little by little. I tell them that yes, time can heal the wounds of the body, but who and how can we heal the wounds of the soul? Wounds that are oozing sorrow and pain all the time, in the form of feelings, images and memories…, that always end up asking the same question: Why so young, why you and not me, or any of the four grandparents who are already in the final stage of our lives? There is no answer. In my long life, I have suffered the loss of many loved ones, but despite the pain, I have been able to bear their absence with resignation, because all of them had lived a life, their life, each in their own way. But in your case, dear Oscar, when your life was cut short for alleged mistakes, you were just starting to live. In those moments, those of us who were with you, suffered such a strong pain that it seemed that the world was falling in on us, and that terrible waiting turned into anger and rage, and the principles and values that we were taught as children collapsed like a house of cards. We lost faith in the world and everything around us and we were left with only the tears of helplessness and pain in our souls.

I have lived through all the stages of life and I think that is why I suffer more from your absence, because I realise that a life as promising as yours, where you had everything to look forward to – you were young, you had health, enthusiasm, the desire to live and to know the world, and a family that adored you. You had and still have a lot of love around you. You had, in short: THE PRIVILEGE OF LIVING, and they took it all away from you. And in the face of this, what consolation can those of us have who, through age and experience, know what you could have lived and they didn’t let you? I don’t want to finish without first asking you, wherever you are and I’m sure you will be where the pure of heart go; you know that your parents and your sister are suffering a lot, tell them, what sense can life have if we shut ourselves up in pain and suffering? Let them think that people as dear as you, even if they leave our side, are not far away. They are helping us day by day, to bear this heavy burden, always clinging to our existence. Tell them that after so much pain, they have to recover their smile, their illusion for life. They have the right to be happy, they need it, they deserve it and you will always encourage them and accompany them. Once again I say goodbye dear grandson. I never thought it would be like this, that I would write you letters, that together with your grandmother we would put flowers for you every day next to that photo of yours which presides over our home. The photo of the smile, as I call it, and when we look at it it seems to give off magic because it gives us strength to go on.

By the law of life all of this should have been the other way around. Saying goodbye to me, writing to me and giving me flowers. But fate, bad luck, or the mystery that governs our lives didn’t even give you the time to say goodbye and make a pact with me: you to live a promising life, and I, who have already lived a long time, would have avoided the suffering of many people, including three very dear ones.

But life is wicked and capricious, sometimes it breaks its own laws and works in a cruel and unjust way, very unjust!

I love you Oscar. We love you.

FAREWELL.