The Survivor

"I return with overwhelming hope
and the ghosts I took with me
and everyone's slums and the friend
that used to be here but is no more

we are all broken but whole
decimated by forgiveness and bad habits
a little more worn and wiser
older and more sincere

I return without duel and it has rained so much
in my absence in my streets in my world
that I get lost in the names and confuse
the rain with tears

I return/ I want to believe I am returning
with my best and worst history
I know this road by heart
but I still feel surprised"

Excerpt from "I want to believe I am returning", by Mario Benedetti

I believe we are all, in our own way, survivors. We all experience loss and despair in different ways (a death in the family, a near death experience, wars, illness...), we all have to confront fears one time or another and although we may come from different backgrounds and the losses and the fears are different, our response is almost the same: we adapt to survive.

This poem is about coming back from exile (Benedetti had to leave his country during the dictatorship in Uruguay), but to me, his words have always given a voice to those who have survived an ordeal (be it exile, death, disease or war) and as a result found themselves changed; not quite unrecognizable but very much unlike the person they used to be.

When I finished this piece, I couldn't help but think of this poem, the image of this being coming back from the unknown, unrecognizable, leaving behind the very thing that changed him and coming back to the world as we know it, not as a different person, but as a different version of himself. What will the road home look like through those new eyes? what does the world feel like on that new skin? how will he use his new voice, unknown to everyone, even himself? what will he see the first time he looks in the mirror? how much of himself did he leave behind? and how much of the experience that changed him is coming back with him?.