The 5-Hour Sunset

I’m not sure if it’s because of my emotions being all over the place or because of Sophia’s beautiful piece I just read or because of Kemuel unwillingly motivating me to write or to Create when inspiration strikes.. but here I am, on my way to my island Curaçao after 2,5 years, teared up and writing this blogpost while looking at a beautiful sunset that has been lasting for four hours now. I started the title with The 4-Hour Sunset, but I’m curious if I’m going to have to change it because of it lasting even longer.

This is a weird blessing I’m experiencing right now. A blessing to be going back after 2,5 years, but for a very sad reason. A blessing to travel with these family members for the first time ever. A blessing to wonder at a sunset, which is one of my most favorite moments of the day, for so many hours. Above the clouds, white fluffy pillows below me. A blessing to be able to read beautiful pieces by my loved ones that love to write. To be the first to read their piece. To be the first to be inspired by them. I’ve been thinking for days on writing something down. I recently started to wonder if I should just keep it to myself. I wonder and question a lot. I used to question even more. Now I accept more. I calculate and analyze, observe, ask Him for understanding and then accept. I’m not sure if I will finish this piece in one go or if I will finish it on the plane. We now have 4 hours and 42 minutes to go, so let’s see. That’s now 4 hours and 18 minutes of sunset.

Writing around the bush. As I’ve said on my blog before, I was never one to share things about myself. Not this openly. A one on one conversation and I can be pretty open. I’m somehow more comfortable then. Maybe also comfortable being uncomfortable. Maybe because I’m sitting in front of a ‘real person’, looking into someone’s eyes who also has human experiences, feelings, failures. I think it makes me feel more OK knowing I’m not alone or the only one going through something. Which brings me here. Back around that bush. On the good side now. Because when I write and send it out there, to you, it also arrives at a person. A human being. Maybe not one I have eye contact with at the moment, but you’re there too. Yes, blogging means that my words will be out there for everyone to read and re-read. It will not be lost in the air once I’ve spoken them or in just one person’s brain. And for sure it will be good for myself to read again too.

I recently lost my baby cousin. On December 26th, the second or third Christmas day. He was one year and 5 months, my uncle’s third son and a bundle of pure joy to all. I was supposed to finally meet him the last week of January 2022, when I’m planned to go to Curaçao for my father’s wedding.

I don’t know how to begin to write about my last few days, today being the 2nd of January, the day I’m writing this piece and the day I’m creating another back-to-the-future feeling. On the evening it happened it was night for me in Portugal and my phone is then on sleep mode from 23:00h till 8:00h, so messages and calls coming through whatsapp are all blocked. So it wasn’t until the morning when I woke up and checked my phone that I saw so many missed calls and group video calls, from my mother, aunties, sister and father. Everything stopped for a minute, I stayed calm but frozen knowing something happened but seeing that both my parents and sister called, so did something happen in Portugal and I didn’t know about it? I thought. I opened my phone and entered whatsapp and went to my sister’s messages and saw at the bottom that she wrote that our cousin had passed away. Still calm I video call my mother and she tells me the news. She explains how a closet had fallen on my baby cousin and caused him to die. A freak accident. She then starts talking about my uncle and other cousins and I burst into tears. And I can’t stop.

I predicted that this Christmas I would probably cry more than I do at other Christmases. I cry every Christmas, I never completely understood why. But I concluded this year that part of it is also a reflection of the year passed. The year passed where I kept strong and held all my tears in and fought through. At Christmas I then comfortably let go. And that’s ok, I accept it. I had said that this year (2021) would be worse, but saying this only having the world and this covid saga in mind. How everyone is aching somehow in some way.

4 hours and 7 minutes to go and the sun has finally beat us. A sunset of 4 hours and 53 minutes.

So, I started crying and couldn’t stop. I literally wept and did it loudly. I was going to put the air mattress away that I put in the living room to watch movies on the projector, but I left it and stayed there all day. For a couple of days even. I called my mother several times, my sister, my father, aunties and cried again after or during all those calls. I went for a run and then to the sea and back home and cried. I left the blinds closed during the day until it was dark and then day again for four days. On that first night I woke up I don’t know how many times to check my whatsapp, seeing if someone called, if everything is alright, if someone had sent me a message. I turned that sleepmode off only for whatsapp, so anything could come through. I didn’t sleep well. I did go to the sea all those days except for maybe one, either to enter the water for a surf or just to listen to, see and smell the waves. On the third day it was the first time I sang something again. Very tired and weak, realizing I hadn’t been eating breakfast nor lunch the passed days.

Omg, I don’t know how, but the sunset is back, haha. Ok, pictures of proof.

Sophia wrote: “Cry, sing, laugh and trust”. And oh wauw, that could’ve been the title of this blogpost. It summs up these passed days pretty perfectly. And also these days to come. We’re not there yet. So many feelings are all over the place, my body feels tired, suppressing my emotions but awaiting and preparing for what’s still to come. I feel my body fighting my tears to be released. I think it got tired of me crying. Do you know that feeling? I hope not, actually. But I will continue the same way Sophia did; cry, sing, laugh and trust. Or even.. just to let it happen. It’s ok to feel sad and joy at the same time. It’s ok to laugh and make a joke again. Let it happen. Untighten my buttocks, breath, let my shoulders hang again and feel however I want to feel. It’s ok not to be ok. (At it’s time).

I’ve realized (again) how much music means to me. What it does to me and for me. How much I enjoy lyrics, good meaningful tongue twisting and brain breaking lyrics. I love it. It’s poetry, it’s art, it’s a feeling, a heartbeat; it lives. Each day I encountered a song that my spirit and feeling allowed me to play and oh I played it on repeat for sometimes over 20 times. The first one on that third day was Breath by Bethel Music & Amanda Lindsey Cook. Then on the fourth day Moon by Kanye West, then If I Ruled The World by Nas & Lauryn Hill, then Praise God by Kanye West and now on the seventh day When I Wake Up by Jill Scott.

5 hours and 35 minutes and the sun has really set this time. Such a beautiful and unique experience. A present from God. I thank You.

Some time later and I’m a movie further and there are only 2 hours and 20 minutes left to arrive. The stars outside are magical and it feels a bit like we are in space. It’s bittersweet going back now. Finally seeing my father again is sweet. Seeing my mother and sister and family and traveling with family together is all very sweet. But how bitter is it that the reason I’m going back is to meet my cousin for the first time at his own funeral. To be there for my uncle, aunt, cousins and the rest of the family. I don’t know how the next days will look like, but I will let it happen.