A miserable old git and a sentimental old fool

My little brother called me in the office yesterday. I sounded as miserable as ever – I just can’t chit chat when I am working.

All he wanted to say was that he’d thought of me today, and when he thinks of me, he calls me because he loves me…I had also thought of him the same morning and what a bad older sister I’ve been neglecting him and our other brother. Why didn’t I call?…There is always something to be done first…and before I know it the most important thing, time, passes me by.

Afterwards he emailed me a song. As I type this and listen to it again, there is a lump in my throat and tears are welling in my eyes but there are also flutterbies in my heart as I truly love my brother. The song he sent says it all: what's important is not what's said openly but what's meant; not what's in the surface but what’s underneath, not what we see but what we truly understand.

My poor English translation of this song by Carlos Varela (http://www.carlosvarela.com) follows:

A word says nothing
At the same time it hides it all
Like wind hides the water
Like flowers hide the mud

A look says nothing
At the same time it says it all
Like the rain upon your face
Or an old map of some treasure

A truth says nothing
At the same time it hides all
Like a bonfire that does not extinguish
Like a stone born out of dust

If one day you lose me, I’ll be nothing
At the same time I’ll be everything
Because in your eyes are my wings
And the shore where I drown