<\/p>\n
This text was the easiest to comprehend but the hardest to part with. I felt that every time I discovered something new between the lines, I would go back and delve further into Ana-Maria\u2019s words. Bombal\u2019s juxtaposition between the regret in death and the egotistical way we live life made for a reality check that disoriented me as I continued to read. It began as a romance where Ricardo was a focus for a while, a forbidden lover who she continues to remember and love following her departure. Her negligence towards Antonio, her husband, as she thinks about how her coldness towards him in the real world made her corpse even colder. It all came full circle to making sense of the forbidden. It reminds me of my religion Islam and how we are constantly reminded that this world is a test and tomorrow is not promised. How we are to consistently work towards a greater purpose and a life beyond the physical realm so that we are rewarded with boundless treasures. But reading Ana-Maria\u2019s accounts made me reflect on how our efforts to the hereafter surpass religion or beliefs. No longer accountability for a task completed but upholding a promise to oneself to be greater than the soil we stand, work, love, and fight on.<\/p>\n
Like Ana-Maria, I have regrets and I know I am not alone in this but unlike her I am alive. As cold as it sounds, her conscious regretfulness, although unrealistic, shakes the living into a realization that we take nothing away with us when we depart. The feelings we gift people and the impressions we leave behind are what live on. Whether that be relationships or friendships, romantic ties or platonic bonds, we owe ourselves the courage to make a lasting impression on the world and live a selfish life. Circling back to Islam, we believe that the only way for our souls to live on in the dunya\u00a0<\/em>(Arabic for \u201cworld\u201d) is through the eyes of our loved ones and those we have wronged. If our effects are negative, they will negatively impact us even after we are lowered into the ground. But the same applies for our positive effects. A smile, a gesture, or an expression of love are all ways we can detach from our pride and make a lasting impression on people who may or may not be here when we depart. The Shrouded Woman was my favourite reading thus far because I learned from it, I took something away. This world does not define us as much we define this world.<\/p>\n I ask :<\/p>\n Did this reading make you think of a specific someone in your life? Someone you would think deeply of if you were a conscious corpse awaiting your approaching loved ones, one by one?\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Would you approach this text again at a different angle, knowing what it has seemed to teach you and hoping to learn more?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This text was the easiest to comprehend but the hardest to part with. I felt that every time I discovered something new between the lines, I would go back and delve further into Ana-Maria\u2019s words. Bombal\u2019s juxtaposition between the regret in death and the egotistical way we live life made for a reality check […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68319,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,23,25,27,28,31,29,30,2,24,15],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-after-life","tag-bombal","tag-death","tag-family","tag-friend","tag-promise","tag-regret","tag-religion","tag-rmst-202-201","tag-shrouded-woman","tag-surrealism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/bueno\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/bueno\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/bueno\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/bueno\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/bueno\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/bueno\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/bueno\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/19"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/bueno\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/bueno\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/bueno\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}