The Tip

Someone once asked me what I thought about life. I grinned.

"No one asks that anymore," I said.

"Is it too late to start again?" He smiled back.

"Never is." I looked outside the window. "I find fascinating how, in this spring-winter, the snow not only accepts the sunlight - the same one that will melt it and make it disappear -, but it shines in esplendor and beauty. The same force bringing happiness and sorrow, death and rebirth.

"I dare to say that I believe that a snowflake lives more than most of the people. Life is also about rebirth, and there is no rebirth without death. One must not be scared of it, but embrace it. There comes a time when everything ends, and that makes it worthwhile. Tears don't have to fall anywhere but on smiling lips. Acceptance, joy, they are parts of one same feeling. Beauty comes from the inconstancy of things, although it's not seen until it's eternal. People tend to forget that - I do it too. Nevertheless, it is when you forget it that life finds a way to remind you of it."

His eyes were somewhere else. People passed by on the sidewalk. The coffees were getting colder, but none of us seemed to notice.

"People. Always in a hurry... I wonder how many of those minds are discussing with themselves. Discovering. Listening, speaking. I wonder how many of them feel the Sun on their skin, and not only its warmth. And for the ones who do, I wish they never let the feeling slip away. I wish the brightness never left their eyes. The brightness of the tears of glimpses of understanding, of feeling it. Feeling life.

"We come and go," he continued, "but if we don't cherish our stay and make a life instead of a living, we will never have been here at all. That's what bugs me: mortality. Someone misunderstood the concept of immortality along the way - it's not about the flesh. It's not about our bodies. Immortality is what lives on, despite oneself being present or not. Like the feeling of life. The feeling of consciousness, of plenitude."

"So you think that the feeling of life is immortal?"

"And therefore life as a concept as well. I do not distinguish 'life' from 'the feeling of life'. A lifetime lived without the feeling of life is no life at all. It never dies, even thought it's constantly reborn. I'm not saying that nothing ever dies, no. Things die, thoughts die. They die and cannot be restored. Life is forgotten, but never dies. Forgotten feelings can be remembered. If only I could help them to..."

The waitress came and asked if we wanted something else. "No, thank you," we said, and she left without further delays.

"I wish I knew her name," I said. He laughed.

"How do you know she knows it?" And drank a sip of his coffee.

"That's why I want to ask."

Silence fell. The cold coffees were now half-full.

"But it's beautiful, isn't it?" I said.

"What is?"

"Life."

"Oh, yes. It most definitely is."

We finished our coffees and, smiling, left two tears on the table as the tip.