Reflection in the Water

This is a book about love — and about how hard it is to see it when it is right beside you.

The author tells his life to God: a childhood in which his mother and grandmother passed away early; first love and betrayal; fifteen years of marriage, two children and the breakup of a family; a new meeting that made him ask again whether he knows how to love at all. He passes no verdicts on himself or on others. He tries to understand why we expect from those close to us what they never promised, why we call the desire to possess “love”, and how the person who was near every day becomes truly visible only when they leave.

The image that holds the whole book is simple: lean over still water and you will see your face; try to adjust the reflection with your hands and it disappears. The people we love turn out to be such water. In them we first of all see ourselves — our fear, our pride, our thirst to be chosen. And when we finally take our hands away and the water grows still, it reflects what was above all faces from the very beginning.