On Nomination and past Week

I was nominated as one of the best 25 aplicant blogs at www.clearadmit.com! Wow! That is great! I guess a few people don't mind me taking liberty with the English language from time to time (ok, most of the time).
Yesterday, I went to church for the first time for what seems to be centuries. It had been a long time since i hadn't stepped foot inside a sanctuary. The occasion was sad. A few weeks a go, a 31 year-old engineer was shot by robbers in front of his house in Haiti, leaving behind a young wife and their three very young children. I didn't know well the person who died but it touched me so when I heard the news that I had to attend the ceremony.
There, I saw many familiar faces. People who I can't say are friends or foes but who share a link with me. For ten years now that I have been in Canada, I have seen these people at parties,we have lived in the same areas, went to the same schools, etc.
Some are nice, some are mean, many are now married, some have succeeded while others are shadows of their former selves. A lot of these people are not my friends but they are more than acquaintances. We share a heritage, a way of looking at the world, a history.
Being part of a close-knit commmunity has disadvantages:the gossip, competition, fakeness.
Yet, when one of ours has fallen down hit by bullets, we all came together and I was proud.
I was proud that instead of being a celebration of death, the mass was a celebration of life.
I was proud at my fellow Haitians for using well-chosen words that soothed our souls.
I was proud to see the young widow still full of life and smiling and laughing.
I was delighted to drink some homemade Haitian hot chocolate while joking with people I hadn't seen in years after the mass. To be in a church basement with the same people one used to see at all the parties freshman year, 10 years older, wiser, was an interesting experience. It didn't leave me sad because despite the circumstances, I still saw the great spirit that we, Haitians, have inside of us beaming in the room. I went in sad but I left joyful.
Thank you Wladimir Antoine and may you rest in peace.