An Arabic legend tells the story of two friends traveling through the desert. At one point, they got into a fight and one of them slapped the other. The hurt friend, without a word, wrote on the sand: “Today my best friend hit me.”
They continued on together and reached an oasis where they decided to bathe. The one who received the slap started to drown, and the friend saved him. When he regained consciousness, he used a knife to write on the rock: “Today my best friend saved my life.”
Impressed by this, the friend asked him: “Why did you write on the sand after I slapped you, and now you are writing on the rock?”
Smiling, the friend replied: “When a friend hurts us, we should write about it on the sand so that the wind of forgetfulness and forgiveness can erase and blow it away forever. But when a friend helps us, we should engrave it into the hard rock of memory where no wind can ever erase it.”
Selected and translated from Spanish by Nataša Žaja