The disease was poignant, endless, but I was not ready for the end. And perhaps internally I did not want to prepare for it. That is why the first days were horrible…
It seems like it was yesterday. Meanwhile, almost nine years have passed. Nine long years since the death of John Paul II. The time of distress, sorrow is over. A time when the feeling of “lack” and “emptiness” became so poignant, intolerable, that many people felt the need to confide, to pour words and feelings on paper. They left thousands cards on the St. Peter’s Square or attached them to the surrounding colonnade. I trust that he himself will know how to read them. Thousands of stories from everyday life, from which the longing pierced. As from the card of a woman, probably a young one, signed Ania: “I feel something strange. It is as if I have only now realized that I have to deal with everything by myself, that you are gone…”
I must confess that the most difficult, most unclear were the moments of prayer. Yes, I certainly understood that this is God’s will. But internally it cost me a lot, and it was hard to agree that he was gone. He is gone forever. But then, once I had come to terms with it, I began to feel his presence. In another way, of course, not as before. It was a clear, distinct feeling. And, from then on it has always been like that – and it is. In another way, I repeat, but he is still with us, among us. Moreover, I can still say that his presence has become even deeper and even more effective.
With the permission of Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz – “At the side of the Saint”
St. Stanislaw BM Publishing House, Krakow 2013
