Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Te decet hymnus Deus, in Sion, et tibi reddetur votum in Ierusalem. Exaudi orationem meam; ad te omnis caro veniet. Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Requiem.What happens when someone you love passes away? Suddenly life has new meanings, new values and new senses. You stop and wonder whether you’ve done everything you could to show them how much they meant to you. You wonder and you hurt because there are no answers that could ever ease your pain.

And what happens when a friend sends you a message saying that her mother passed away? You don’t know the mother, but you do know you friend. How do you wipe her tears off? Is there anything you can do for a friend to say “I am sorry?”

When the pain is not your pain, is there a real way to show that your affection and compassion are real and not just facile displays of tact?

Even with online relationships the feelings are deep and strong. And when one of our online friends suffers we feel her pain as our own. There is a social etiquette here as well as in the real world and there are not enough people with the understanding for the ethics of such an environment. But more important than the social ethics are the real feelings that often are biased by false statements and pretenses.

I received an email today from a dear friend of mine, letting me know that her mother passed away. I am not going to give you her name now - revealing someones identity for the sake of giving an entry the element of extraordinary is not something I welcome as practice. But I am going to tell my friend, if she ever reads these lines, that this is an entry I wrote thinking about her pain. And when I write I hurt for not being able to be there and hold her hand through this difficult time. I am sorry, dear friend. And tonight I light up a candle for your mother’s soul.

Simonne at alltipsandtrics.com inspired me to write about this sad event. I am not writing it only to wipe a tear off my friend’s cheek, I am also writing it because I think Simonne is right when saying:

By postponing to tell people things you want them to hear from you, you may find yourself one day with all those words condemned to stay in your head forever, as the ears they were meant for were no longer available to hear.

I remember my friend’s Marius words, before he passed away:

Mig, always live with the same passion of today. Never break the rhythm and always tell what’s in your mind and heart. Treat life and living with respect: don’t give them just half measures. Half of a truth is not the truth. Half of a song is not the song. Remember to always live and endure like the Mother Earth: give life and endure, give hope and show your beauty to the eyes that know how to see it. And never seek for false glory.

Thank you, my beautiful friend. I’ll never forget you.