At what point do you decide to start living the life you love living?
A year ago today I learned a good friend of mine had been killed while on a trip to the White Desert in Egypt. Her name was Queta. She had traveled there to learn, discover, and just hang out in one of the most remarkable destinations on Earth. She was one of the smartest, sweetest, most courageous, charismatic, insightful souls that I have known. She was Mexican and lived in Mexico City. She loved to travel, she adored her family and was an amazing business woman. I met her while I was overseeing the production of a reality TV show in Mexico about 4 years ago. The show needed an individual with deep knowledge and experience in the modeling/fashion world. When I met Queta, I knew her personality, skillset and meticulous reputation were a match for the show. She was a great collaborator and we also became friends. We would often giggle about our being “friendship at first sight.”
That Queta and I lived in different countries made no difference to our friendship. Thank you technology. She also visited me when she was in LA, I saw her when I was in Mexico, and together we went on an amazing journey to Southern India. We would spend hours talking about what we had discovered about life since we last had hung out. We would turn over on its many sides the subject of how life lessons came to us in such varying ways. We learned to let our curiosity lead the way when we were faced with challenges in life. It became one of our favorite topics.
I remember the morning of the day I was to learn her sweet soul was gone. I woke up, stretched my body awake and reached for my phone and sent her text saying, “Queta are you around so we can talk?” While I waited for her reply I felt compelled to go on to Facebook. This was unusual for me because I make it a habit to check my Facebook page only a few times a week, generally at the end of a workday. But that morning I felt the need to log on. The first thing displayed on my news feed was a photo of her and the news of her death. As I read the post, I felt the temperature in my body change to warm and then cold and I felt a painful contraction take hold of my heart. I called the person in Mexico who posted it and I said, “Glenda, hola hola! Please tell me it’s not her?” Glenda said, “I am so sorry dear friend, it is her, it is her.”
How can it be? Queta was a breast cancer survivor and the last time we communicated she was feeling great and joyful about the life ahead for her. Had the disease aggressively come back? What happened next became a blur.
I heard Glenda say the words “Egypt” and “attack.”
Queta was a spiritual seeker and she possessed a deep desire to discover deeper layers of herself and the world. This took her on a journey to Egypt. There, in the White Dessert, on Sunday, September 13, 2015, her life and that of 11 other souls was taken away. It was reported that the Egyptian Military mistakenly believed they were terrorists and, with no question asked, took them all out. I found out about her death three days after she was gone.
I was devastated. Today I still hear her laughter and see the light coming out of her big brown eyes.
The death of a loved one is often a transitional moment in the lives of the surviving family and friends. Since Queta’s passing I work diligently to integrate the daily practice of taking deep breaths and asking out loud, “What steps do I need to take to live a life I love living today?” In silence I hear my answers that then create the steps I take everyday. Why does it take a huge tragedy and accident or a sad parting of ways for us to fully appreciate all that we have and are? No one ever knows the exact time when our turn will come to take our light to the next place. No one is immune to death. In the meantime, I set the daily intention to live an audaciously loving day.
Queta Rojas, dear friend, even now that you are gone your magic keeps weaving into my life. Know that because of how you chose to be in your life, you have filled mine with a constant bright light.
