Ironic Happenstance

Yesterday I attended a funeral held outside for 4 hours. Even through frozen limbs and full of self awareness of how my body try its best to fight the cold, it was hard to see my Mayor and his family say goodbye to his mother.

It was my first funeral here in Moldova, and was told later that it was done differently from a traditional Orthodox funeral. In fact it was performed according to the Seventh-day Adventist religion. The difference lies in the fact that this one was held outside and not in a church, there were no religious flags or candlesticks, and no wine were served at the Masa after the burial service.

Instead we went to a ceremony at the house, were people could say goodbye to her in the sala (living room), later through many carols she was brought outside while the rest of the service continued with speeches. After two hours of that, she was loaded onto the truck and everyone from the house followed the truck to the cemetery. More speeches took place leading up to the very last moment when the family said goodbye to her before she was laid into the ground.

Through 4 hours of witnessing this, I had many running thoughts, due to not being able to understand all that was being said and to see a 76 year old woman lie peacefully in her casket surrounded by her loved ones on what would have been her birthday.

Last night I came home and wanted nothing other than to move my body and warm up and to feel movement. I did Taebo and Yoga, which helped me to connect to life. Then my host mom was worried that I would get my cold back from being outside so long, she made me soak my feet in hot water in a tub with a blanket over it for the rest of the night and told me I do not need to leave my room. That was my treatment, which I didn't complain. I resorted to watching P.S. I Love You and cried with all the feelings I was holding back throughout the day.

Then something happened, we did not have running water. We had only a bucket of water that was being used in the Casa Mica to use between the three of us. I woke up the next morning to still no water and needed really bad to wash my hair. Then just like that all my problems disappeared.

Never in my life have the essentials been withheld from me; food, water, air, love. Today water, the everyday essentials, I did not have. I'm not talking about the fact that I can only shower once a week due to not having hot water on a daily basis, but about not having water at all.

This just made my day. I am happy and appreciate life, because not only am I alive, I've had water all my life. I never had to worry about it taken away from me. How lucky am I??