Cracks,
by Leonor Henríquez

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I spent all last week looking for cracks.

And I found them.

Let me explain.

I had to babysit Panda, the dog I think you’re familiar with, but it turned out to be a stormy spring day.

So, every day I looked up at the “heavy clouds,” as the poet Luis Chamizo (La Nacencia) said, praying for a sliver of sunshine to open in the sky that would allow me to take the dog for a walk.

And I succeeded. As I’ve told you, in Calgary they say that if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes, because it will change.

As always happens to me, I kept thinking about other kinds of cracks.

I concluded that light is persistent, perhaps invincible. It makes its way, seeks the smallest crack, the smallest hole to filter in and warm the heart.

It may sound trivial, but in those other clouds that life sometimes forces us to navigate, the sun also sneaks in unexpected ways.

Sometimes in a simple “good morning”, in a stranger’s “after you”, the song of a bird, a little blue butterfly, a child’s hug.

Those small miracles that insist on peeking through the cracks of the stormiest of the paths.

And as I was writing these lines, the house shook with a clap of thunder.

I stopped what I was doing, and by chance, my eyes met a photograph of my German mother-in-law, Brigitta (Gitta), mother of the love of my life, an admirable woman who lived remarkably to 96 years old.

At the end of her life, she taught me the only phrase I remember in German, and I believe it is relevant.

Simple words, but full of wisdom and truth, like Gitta herself.

“Nach jedem Sturm scheint die Sonne”.

“After the storm, the sun shines”.

So it was, and her memory came through a crack, as a beautiful rainbow.

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