Just over 3 years ago, while walking in London Fields, I saw that one of the trees had flower bunches wrapped around it. A message on the tree was saying that the tree itself was dying because someone was using it as an object to teach dogs how to attack. There were scratches and marks all around the tree and yes, eventually it died.
Another tree was planted right next to what was left of the dead tree. This time a fence was put around it for protection, so it could simply grow safe and sound.
Today, while I was walking with Wolfie, I saw that there were some flower bunches on the new tree, inside of the fence.
I thought to myself: “probably some tree huggers left a remembrance gift for the old tree”… I decided to have a closer look just so I could have a laugh (nothing against tree huggers).
However, as I drew closer, I saw that there were photos of someone. Obviously I decided to go straight to the photos to have a look.
To my utmost surprise, it was the photo of someone I knew. Someone I actually knew.
I cannot describe how surprised I was and what this all means to me. I might be over thinking but there’s so much I’m reading into this coincidence, that could be, perhaps, one of the biggest coincidences of my life.
To start with, it’s some kind of landmark in my life in London. Sorry if this sounds creepy…
In our lives we grow up, we go to school, we make friends, we love, we work, people come, people go, people come back, people die. We are familiar with our neighbourhoods, with our cities, with our way to school or to work. For a long time “life” for me was in Brazil. All big events, friends and memories of familiar situations included sunshine and stuffy air.
A few months after I came to London for the first time, I received the news that someone I knew had died in Brazil. It wasn’t someone I knew very well. It was a friend of a friend whom I had a crush on during a 5-day trip to Porto Alegre. At the age of 20, it was the first young person to die in my circle of friends. I was shocked. My life was still happening in Brazil.
Now my life is in London, it really is. I’ve been through a lot in this city, I made friends, I found work, people came, people went and now people die: like the boy in the photo.
The boy in the photo was none other than the producer of the first short film I worked on as a runner, in 2009. I never saw him again though I did try to contact him so I could get a DVD copy of the film.
It was his graduation project. I particularly remember him because he looked like a Brazilian cartoon and I also remember teaching him how to say c*** in portuguese.
Staring at the photo, I couldn’t believe what big a coincidence it was so I started looking around at the cards. There was his name as a sad confirmation: “Happy birthday ____ You’re missed everyday.”
It was indeed that boy, that future film producer and he is dead.
In my twisted film-buff-selfish mind, I couldn’t help but recall a quote from one of my favourite films “Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. It’s contrast.”
I also remembered that just a few weeks ago I was lost in thought, ruminating on how newspapers write about deceased people: there’s always a parent or relative talking about how amazing the person was and what a brilliant future the person had ahead of him/her. (I concluded they were most probably lying, the dead person was more often an arse but now that he/she’s dead, he/she turns out to be the greatest person the world could ever lose).
So with the film quote and the newspaper blather in my head, I couldn’t help thinking that maybe that boy (and I call him boy because he was 22 when I met him) really had a brilliant future ahead of him, that we probably met at a big moment in his life, where things were only starting to happen. But now he’s dead, for some reason life didn’t happen to him… it happened to me.
I crossed an ocean, leaving all that I knew behind, but in any moment I had any idea that I would get this far, that I actually would end up with so many accomplishments, specially more recently, landing my first job in a big feature film.
And because of this moment in the park today, I can’t help valuing my life more, being even more grateful not only for the good things but also the bad things that help shape my character and my life in London.
I sincerely hope this post doesn’t sound negative as if I would be happy the boy died and I succeeded. Hopefully it will bring… hope. The contrast is there, bringing balance to the world, nothing more, nothing less.
Go, Lanjal! 