The water takes, yes. But it also reveals. It washes away the clutter, the pretense, the "someday" dreams you were only holding out of habit. What remains is the essential. The irreducible. The real. I am not going to tell you that losing things is beautiful. It isn’t. Loss is loss. Grief is grief.
There is a quiet wisdom in the Spanish phrase. It doesn’t say someone took something. It doesn’t blame. It doesn’t demand justice. It simply observes: The water took it. Lo Que El Agua Se Llevo
At first glance, it sounds literal. A flood sweeping through a village. A river reclaiming its floodplain. A sudden wave crashing against the shore. The water comes, and the water goes. In its wake, things are missing. A photograph. A house. A bridge you crossed every morning on your way to school. The water takes, yes
When the flood recedes, you don’t stand there mourning the mud. You look for what survived. What remains is the essential
Lo que el agua se llevó. That is the hardest part to accept. The water doesn’t hate you. It doesn’t love you. It simply obeys its nature.