This is a sad day for me.

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Friends, my best friends will not come to have lunch with me. Yesterday evening, as I was about to have tea with Anita, Dixie called me crying. Camila shares a house with her daughter and 2 friends. They are not just roomies, they are like sisters. Yesterday, one of her friends was cycling towards their home and she was hit by a giant bus. She was killed instantly. Catalina was young and a wonderful dancer. And most important, she was a wonderful young woman. Last night was the wake. Dixie said that it was beautiful, really a celebration of the young life taken so soon. In my country, all people who die in an accident must be take to a forensic lab. When they returned her to their family, they did not let anyone see what was left of her. Dixie told me that her mother and friends placed mementos on the coffin. Her last picture was one that was downloaded from the news when she was alive. Her last job had been to be part of the opening of the Pan American games. Then, today, I watched the news of the rubble that is now Gaza. A reporter asked an ex Chilean ambassador in Israel to talk about all that is happening. She said that personally she thought that it would be very improbable to end with the Hamas group. They have giant fortresses under the houses, hospitals and schools in Gaza. The people suffering are the civilians. A baby is a miracle, friends. A person is a miracle. How can they be destroyed in a second? I can only hope that Catalina is dancing hi up. I also remembered that the last time I talked by phone with my grandson Tomás, he said that he wanted to be an entomologist. I answered him that he would be taught by the greatest entomologist there was. When the young and the innocent die it seems harder to bear. R.I.P. Catalina.