Monday, November 24, 2008

birthdays

relationships are like second lives. i’ll explain: when you first meet someone, no matter how early or late in your life, it is almost as if that person was born at exactly that moment for you. and, in some way, when that happens, you are born again. you see that person in a light that probably no one has seen before, and the same thing happens to you, if the relationship is mutual in any way.
i don’t remember the exact time when the creator or uncle ita were born to me; i do know that, in both cases, i was born to them earlier than they were born to me. tio ita since the beginning of my life, and Jesus even before that. with michi, we were born to each other at the exact same time, as i recently confirmed. and, in this sense, i was never born to lyle mays (who knows maybe one day), but he was born to me at the end of 1996.
i know, this stuff with born and being born is kind of strange, but i was thinking of it today, while remembering someone special’s birthday. and this is the person i want to write about today. there are people like lyle mays whom i’ve never known and quite possibly never will; then there are people like tio ita, whom i’ve known quite well over the years. then there are people like michi, who i got to know better only years and years after “birth”. and, yes, there are people who i know somewhat, but nonetheless i admire and really like a lot in spite of never really being a vital part of their life.
this is such a person. she was born to me in october of 1994, and it was quite an impressing birth! yes, i still remember the first impression i had of ronísia marinho. it was right after a concert that the group i participated in at the time gave at her church (tom de vida at velho iae, now unasp são paulo). her younger sister rosiley and her were in the back of the church, even a long time after the concert was over. their father (robson) was the pastor of that church at the time, so i guess they were used to being the last ones to leave. but i couldn’t stop looking at her! there are three things that i have tradicionally liked about girls: smile, eyes and hair. and, yeah! what big dark eyes! what an incredible smile (if you know her, you know what i’m talking about)! and that short, dark, straight hair that i like a lot. that was quite a first impression.
now, i’ve haven’t had too many impacting first impressions like this one, and when that happened, i normally never saw the person again. this was different with rô, though. i saw her once later that year, and these two sightings somehow were enough to get my interest in her to a high level. in 1995, beginning of the year, she was the title girl of a denominational magazine, and strangely enough, i became convinced that i was in love with this stranger. although this didn’t last for long, it was still kind of a strange and nice feeling.
it was even nicer, though, to actually get to know ronísia, more than a year later. we lived in the same little community for a short while, and i loved going over to her place to pay a visit to that family i really love (including mother rozenia and once again, sister rosiley, who will deserve a blog entry of her own). we have seen each other a few times a year since then, although now it has been quite a while. she now lives in the states and seems to be on her way to a happy life.
i know her as a person filled with emotions, really alive. she really enjoys helping others and making her friends happy, has time and a great ear - she knows how to listen. through her strong emotions, it seems that she celebrates life; and, thus, people tend to really like her and enjoy her presence.
on this day, her birthday (which i remember since 1995), i get reminded of how you can love different people in different ways, and how they all are so unique. i can’t say that i know too much about ronísia’s life now, neither that we are particularly close. but i do know that she is special to me, one of those people you just root for at anytime. so, happy birthday, rô!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Marcinho!!!
This post was a really nice birthday present!!! Thank you so much for being such a good friend.
Eu tenho muito carinho por você e pela sua família, e lendo o seu post me deu muitas saudades daquela época em que estavamos sempre assistindo filme juntos, nos divertindo e conversando sobre assuntos mais diversos.
Você é muito especial.
Beijos!
Rô.