The morning started with an unexpected email in my inbox; something I’d not had from my brother for a very long time.  “I have some bad news,” the mail read.  “Marcelo died this morning from an aneurysm to his brain.  I’m absolutely devastated.”

I was transfixed as I sat there in my car, reading and re-reading the mail, over and over.

How can that be?  Not Marcelo?  Surely not?  He’s too young, he can’t be gone?

And yet the distress conveyed in the words of my brother’s email confirmed Marcelo was gone and the pillaging thief that death is, had stolen deeply from the well of life and love.

I can count on my two hands the number of times I was physically together with Marcelo, yet even in our far- too-few shared times, he had left a huge, unmistakable imprint in my life and soul.  That first night, in London, that he’d come bounding up to us, to meet me.  He’d kissed me on both cheeks and smiled his sweet, lopsided grin.  He’d been shy and nervous, yet exuberant and excited to finally meet me.  He was carrying a box of pot plants bought cheaply from a nearby market that he planned to plant into the first of many creative, decorative outside-wall furnishings that I later came to realise were so much a part of how he expressed himself.  He had a habit of finding things thrown out by others as trash, yet which held potential only he could see and that only he could rebuild into a piece of beautiful furniture or decoration.  He owned the rare talent to restore the beauty of something another person had discarded as junk.

And that is precisely what Marcelo did with people too; he created sacred, beautiful spaces where broken people felt loved and cherished, and were allowed to be nurtured unconditionally.  When I met him, I had already invalidated myself as a relationship-rubbish; someone unable to acknowledge myself, unable to love and to express love in relationships.  Yet Marcelo acknowledged me for who I am immediately, from that first meeting and every time afterwards.  He created a sacred space for me that made me feel loved and welcomed and gave me an opportunity, while I was in that space, to forget my feelings of inadequacy and allowed me to feel like a cherished person of beauty; unconditionally of value.

Grief throws a mist over reality and life like no other emotion.  There is no holding it back and no means to control it, and the only way to deal with it is to let it run its course.  It is both cruel and kind as it weaves memories in and out of consciousness.  Its cruelty lies in remembering the details of a lost soul that wouldn’t have come to mind were that person still here.  And in that cruelty, there is a comfort released by each remembrance of that very special person which, in some small kindness, restores pieces of memories destroyed by the devastation of loss from death’s pillage.

I will never forget Marcelo’s incredible exuberance and zest, his unique expressions and generosity, and his overwhelmingly special creative ability and charm.  It is with pain that I write of his loss because he was one of those truly unique individuals that should never have been taken from this world, and certainly not so soon.  But in losing Marcelo, I welcome the ability to remember each of my too-few, deeply connected times with him and I am able to appreciate the delicious richness and wealth he added so generously to my soul.