The Sweetness of Forgetting

by Kristin Harmel

Life changes you, even if you don’t realize it while it’s happening, and it turns out you can’t take back the years that have passed by.

“Because, my dear, it is good to remember that you do not always have to see something to know that it is there.”

“I am sorry for leaving,” she whispered into the wind. “I am sorry for the decisions I have made.” A piece of the crust landed on an incoming wave. “I am sorry for the people I have hurt.” The wind carried her words away.

She had explained that the rails of the bridge are lined with padlocks, put there by lovers to declare the sealing of their relationships. It’s a romantic thought, but I know that padlock or not, relationships are temporary, even when you believe in them with all your heart.

The Koran teaches us to give to those in need and to do it quietly, for God will know your deeds.

‘Whoever saves one life, saves the entire world.’ ” Alain makes a strange strangled sound. “In the Talmud, it is written, ‘If you save one life, it is as if you have saved the world,’ ” he says softly.

It is not religion that divides man. It is good and evil here on earth that separates us.”

One’s heart always came out in the baking, and if there was darkness in your soul, there would be bitterness in your pastries too.

“Yes. There is one God, and he lives in the sky, and he hears all of us. It is just that here on earth, we are confused about how to believe in him. But what does it matter, as long as we trust he is there?”

“I mean that love is all around us,” Alain says. “But the older we get, the more confusing it becomes. The more times we’ve been hurt, the harder it is to see love right in front of us, or to accept love into our hearts and truly believe in it. And if you cannot accept love, you can never really feel it.”

Life doesn’t work out the way we plan, but maybe it works out the way it’s supposed to after all.

You can only look forward in life. You can change the future, but not the past.”

Life is a series of opportunities, and you have to have the courage to seize them, before the years pass you by and leave you with nothing but regrets.

For it is only by loving, and having the courage to be loved in return, that you can find God, who exists most of all in your heart.