on knowing a person

LIRA - Aranya
by M.B. Schwab

I went to a funeral last Monday.  Car accident.  A lot of people died this year, Cory Aquino, Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, John Hughes.. and now a friend.  I attended a poetry workshop last year and we would meet every weekend, 8 hours every Saturday and Sunday.  There were about 20 to 25 of us and we would listen to lectures and critique each other's poems.  We participated in literary events, created a folio and held a fellows' night last December.  Now, our batch will never be complete.

We read his poems.  Some are poignant, some are funny and then there was one that seems to connect with his sister.  This was all a surprise to his family because they did not know that he wrote.  It's sad that they're seeing this side of him for the first and final time. I feel lucky to have been part of that side for one whole year and now we're introducing it to the people closest to him.  We're celebrating his art.

Everybody's so complex, so many sides, so many levels, I don't think we can really REALLY know anyone.  In addition to that, we're growing, learning and changing each minute.  I don't know about you but I'm having a hard time just getting to know myself.  It's even harder to open up and share yourself to other people, harder still to accept each other's shortcomings. But I think we can at least be aware of these difficulties-- and understand that overcoming these stuff will ultimately bring us closer to each other or, at the very least, it will bring us closer to ourselves.