The Blessing

The Blessing
      “Ok concentrate!”, “stop paying attention to what they’re saying” I was telling that to myself, though I couldn’t stop listening to what all those ladies sitting under crystal bubbles were saying while the others, with their hair full of aluminum were being pampered by kind girls in their hairdressers uniforms.   I was waiting for my mom to get her hair done - you know even the most brilliant woman must go to the hair dresser’s and get her hair done. I took my book though, because I can’t stand taking part of those frivolous conversations in which more than one poor soul ends up shattered from so much gossip. I can still remember the book I was reading “à la recherche su temps perdu” by Marcel Proust, I wasn’t particularly enjoying the book, which I didn’t find very entertaining, although it was very interesting and well written. About thirty minutes had passed by, and I hadn’t turned a page. Then, a phone call on my mom’s cell; it was my cousin, he was having lunch with my dad. I wasn’t paying much attention; I was still trying to concentrate on the story. And then, something in my mom’s voice told me what I didn’t want to believe. But then her words made it certain. My dad had been shot. “your dad has been shot!” my mom cried, she was pale, and she seemed so shocked that her tears wouldn’t come out. In her eyes I could see her whole world falling apart. I dropped my book. I had always been the take-it-easy-type girl in my family, but now I didn’t know what to do. It was so unexpected that I wasn’t myself anymore. I was a zombie, and all I did was to get up and leave the place. I was in the middle of the street, like a crazy woman, trembling but I at the same time thinking, “nothing happened, he’ll be ok” I was looking for a cab, but I couldn’t think, I didn’t know what to do. Finally my mom came out; her swollen eyes looked at me, saying she wasn’t ready to live without my dad. But her clear, calmed voice told me to get to the hospital, while...