“Something dies in the soul when a friend leaves.”  These sevillanas about friends perfectly reflect the pain felt when a true friend passes away, or when, for other reasons, friendships are broken.

I felt something similar when my friend Jorge Hernández Mollar left us a few weeks ago. Our friendship began a few years ago when a mutual friend put us together to exchange experiences to improve our blogs and increase their reach.  Jorge’s blog, which I recommend you visit, is titled “Desde mi nube” (From My Cloud) and is considered a political blog. Its address is:  www.johermol.es

From that moment on, we began communicating almost daily. It was usually a telephone conversation, although we took advantage of my visits to Málaga to engage in verbal and nonverbal communication. In addition to discussing our blogs, I learned about Jorge, his story, his life, his family, his faith, and his opinions on many topics. I was impressed by his human and professional qualities as a politician. He spoke calmly, looked you in the eye, and maintained a smile that inspired confidence. You immediately felt understood and loved.

On his blog, he defined himself as a vitalist and an optimist. He is respectful of people without distinction and of human rights. He then adds: “I have a law degree from the Complutense University of Madrid. I have been a civil servant in the Higher Corps of the Social Security Administration, and in my political career, I have held organizational positions in the Popular Party and have been a Senator, a Member of Parliament, and a Member of the European Parliament.”

Given this resume, it might seem that he only talked and wrote about politics. However, the topics he covers on his blog perfectly reflect the themes that interested him: in addition to national and Andalusian politics, he also covers topics such as the Church, justice, religion, poetry, sports, society, and so on. He always seemed to me to be a vital, realistic humanist, with a profound faith in God, cheerful, optimistic, and with many friends.

Jorge was a Supernumerary of Opus Dei, faithful to his vocation, seeking holiness amidst the circumstances of everyday life. In his conversations, he expressed his profound faith, felt himself a child of God, and displayed great apostolic and professional enthusiasm, as well as immense affection for his wife, children, and friends.

She soon began publishing in digital press to reach many people and spread her spirit of service, her desire to help all her readers, make them think, and above all, facilitate the dissemination of a realistic and optimistic approach to the topics she covered in her blog articles and later published in the press. The quality of her articles, her enthusiasm for addressing current and more in-depth topics, led her to quickly begin publishing in the press in Melilla, her hometown, and in Málaga, where she lived. She also published articles in other newspapers in cities where she had friends, such as Segovia. At the end of each article on her blog, there are links to the different media outlets where they had been published: El Confidential Digital, Woman Essentia, El Diario de Madrid, etc.

I was moved by the article in which he recounted his reflections on the day he was told he had cancer. He titled it  “Illness, a Source of Wisdom.”  For example, he said, It can happen that when the hour and day of our time mark the limits of our strength and energy, which accompanied us during the years of our intense social and professional activity, a ‘disease’ suddenly appears, affecting our body in a phase of natural wear and tear and aging due to the passage of time.

In another article entitled  “Room 613”, he shows his gratitude to all the healthcare staff who looked after him, saying that “Caring is one of the key tasks carried out in society and that task concerns us all” (…) Today I wanted to turn it into a personal applause and gratitude, towards those who looked after me day and night with more than proven professionalism and generosity, during my long stay in Room 613 of the Regional Hospital of Malaga.

Jorge accepted his illness and treatment with peace and serenity, aware that if God allowed it, it was for his good, for his holiness.  From then on, in our conversations, we touched on deeper, more supernatural topics: the afterlife and his arrival in heaven through divine mercy. He approached the topics with a new perspective and stopped being interested in other, less important issues for people’s lives.