Life Hotel

LIFE HOTEL

From the moment we are born we become guests of a luxurious thousand-star hotel called LIFE. A wonderful Suite has been reserved for us, equipped with all we need or could want. We do not know if this presidential Suite has been reserved for us for a few days, a few weeks or many years, but we do know that the only condition to remain in it is To Be Happy.

As in a cycling competition, we overcome all kinds of stages during our accommodation at the Life Hotel: easy, happy, hard, sad, steep, flat, accelerated. As the years go by our activities change: we play, we grow, we study, we love, we work, we procreate and, eventually, we retire.

And retiring is like finishing the competition and reaching a plateau. The mountains and worries have been left behind. Now, we just need a rhythmic and smooth pedaling to continue moving forward.

Today, baldness, gray hair and wrinkles make us equal. Now we chat in confidence with the most illustrious executives or with the simplest of the workers. The sober and appropriate suits and shoes we wore at important events lie forgotten at the back of the closet. They have been replaced by old jeans and sneakers. We care little if they are always the same; what matters to us is that they are clean. We care little how the neighbor or some acquaintance we come across look at us.

Sometimes it happens that, when we are old, we are left alone in the home we built, because with all love we have motivated our children to go and know the world and broaden their horizons. And when they make it and walk away, those older children take our hearts with them.

Some of us become grandparents from the distance. When we can we travel to hug and kiss our new babies, creatures who, upon receiving our affection they also learn to love us. Sometimes, as our grandchildren grow we have to make an effort to understand them, because it may happen that their native language is different from ours. Likewise, and even though it hurts us, we must be aware that with time we will lose importance for those little ones, because our pampering and pandering for them will be things of the past.

We see in the streets wander our contemporaries, walking a little hesitant and attentive gaze at the traffic and traffic lights.They may direct to where his friends, indispensable today, particularly those with whom the probable follies of our younger years have been shared. Maybe, in absence of close friends they have discovered a temporary shelter, perhaps a commercial center, that in some way supports hearts and promotes suitable

environment to exchange opinions on the most popular home remedies effective against

inevitable ailments, uncontrollable tremors or increasing loss of memory.

With some frequency we receive news of deaths: a relative, a friend, a known person. Some were close, others not so much, but we still regret their departure. May he rest in peace, we wish for the dead. But could it be that living is tiring? Or could it be that those who rest in the other world are not at peace? Somehow we have the feeling that whoever died ahead of us has reached a state of rest. We sense that in his final resting place he is better that here between us, without that being enough to alleviate our pain, because, although it may sound selfish, the crying and pain that invade us is not because of the person who left but for ourselves, for the lack it makes us and the emptiness it leaves us.

We begin to be aware that we are not afraid of our own death; in fact, sometimes we hope it does not take long, because we are horrified by the idea that our loved ones die before we do.

We don't know for sure where we are going at the end of our days. Maybe we just sleep forever, and if that's our destiny, hopefully, before falling into eternal torpor, we can tell those who have not yet left and suffer for us to wipe away their tears because where we are now we feel good.

Or perhaps we are ordered to reincarnate into another new being.

What we do know is that this end is inevitable, because we cannot stop nor go back; like a river, which after intricate turns, waterfalls and labyrinths, it will lead to the sea. And most likely, like a river, when the time comes, we become part of that magnificent ocean called Universe.

But before that new awakening we must continue the already domestic tasks, taking care

of our health and resources so as not to become old, complaining and a heavy burden, since there's no point in bothering those who filled our days of joy. We must strive so that at the time of vacating the Suite, we deliver it neat and tidy, as it could be that your next occupant has been born from the reanimated soul of the one we bid farewell with so much love.

END.