Life isn't always fair, but take it. It's a gift.

A few days ago I received the unexpected news of the death of Fernando. It was a shock at first because he was young, in its fifties, and full of life. One can never get to totally understand this kind of things, not even when we are prepared for it, less when it's unexpected. But that's how life is. And one thing Fernando knew and was the personifcation of it, I'm sure, is that life is a gift. So we can only try to do the best we can with it. The death of Fernando was the end of his cicle here, but was not the end of his life, because it will continue through the many people he touched.

Fernando was one of the most incredible persons I've ever had the chance to meet. I knew that, even before I met him for the first time, because that's how everybody described him to me. He could not stand without doing nothing while so many people suffer around the world. He went to Haiti after the earthquake, he took water, medicines... and he did that having nothing to give, but simply by infecting everyone around him with this virus he had: his kindness and his will to help and do like Christ did, love every human being. From there, gathering money looked easy. He went to Honduras, he went to Ghana... and many many places around the world. I dare to say he changed the lifes of hundreds of people. He started the project of a professional school in Haiti, he took architects to Africa to rebuild schools, he helped to get potable water to small villages in Ghana... He arranged bicicles for kids that had to walk miles every day to go to school... And I could go on and on.

And he was never alone. He touched children, youngsters and adults to act and share, take matters in hands and do something. Act. He was a teacher, but mostly he was a captivating human being. The diabetes was his own personal fight, the only one he lost. He died in Guinea, doing what he loved the most, helping other people.

We particularly will never forget him, for he was the one who got us a priest, his friend, for our wedding celebration when we were one month to it and had run out of solutions, as our parish priest was not available. That's a fun story we will always remember every year.


One can feel revolted against life. One can shout "why him if the world need him so much?". But one should definetly be grateful for being touched by all this amazing people that set foot on hearth. This is how life his. His life may have been short, but he did the most out of it.

What are you doing with your life? This is what you should be asking yourself.


 

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Dear Lord, 
thank you for giving me the chance 
to be enlightened by the life of Fernando. 
I ask you to give his family the strenght 
to understand and be grateful. 
And to all he touched, may he be an example of Christ on earth, 
and may his path continue to be drawn by the feet of others.


Thank you Fernando for touching my life.