Your birthday in January, our anniversary in February and, your death in March. Every year feels different.
28.01.1976 – Last year around your birth date, I was reading «Laughable loves» by Milan Kundera, 1968. He was Czech, like my paternal grand-father. It is a collection of short absurd love stories. I was thinking I could write an additional one: A widow baking a birthday cake for her husband. I had baked a chocolate cake.
Chocolate birthday cake again, this year. Not that Nati liked chocolate cakes particularly more than any others cakes. Once, he baked chocolate cupcakes for his birthday. He was in Israel; I was then on La Reunion’s island. I remember his proud smile when he showed me his baking tray on Skype.
Late afternoon grocery shopping, prior his birthday. It is already dark outside. It doesn’t really rain. Blanched whole almonds for the praline, almond paste for the almonds cream, oat drink for the chocolate ganache. As I walk back from the shop, I pass a man coming the other way, on the sidewalk. He wears Nati’s perfume. I smile and I tear up at the same time. I’m standing in the drizzle. Tears of joy or tears of sadness? I can’t really tell. Maybe both.
Baking at dawn. It is still peach dark and quiet. I prepared the dough and the chocolate ganache last night. After cooking the tart shells, I roast the almonds in the oven. Six years ago, my guilt was consuming me. I was not with you for your 40th birthday. I pour the boiling syrup on the warm almonds, stir, caramelize on medium heat and throw the caramelized almonds on a baking-paper to cool down. Guilt is arrogance in disguise. What kind of super power did I think I had, to know that it was going to be your last birthday? Mixer. Praline is done.
I wanted to surprise you with a hot air balloon tour above the Loire Valley, for your 40th birthday. A slow elevation in the silence of the early morning. Only the breath of the burners warming up the cold air in the balloon and, the dogs barking below. Almond cream. I pour the boiling syrup on the cacao butter, praline and almond paste. The consistency looks right. The chocolate ganache, on the other hand, is too liquid. I suspect the Mexican witch to be in my French kitchen again. But you were not turning 39 as I thought. Mistakes are unforgivable in the face of death. There is no second chance.
Chocolate tart montage. A thin layer of praline on the tart shell. A thicker layer of chocolate ganache and, a spiral of almond cream. The spiral is sinking into the chocolate ganache making the chocolate overflowing the shell. But I developed some camouflage skills. A rose petal to cover up. If you don’t mind, I will give one of the chocolate tarts to my hairdresser. She has a sweet tooth too.
As I’m writing these words seating at the table of my French kitchen, my Ipod is randomly picking «Stay with me» by Sam Smith. That song takes me back to our Cypriot kitchen. I was singing out loud and off key, while you were making diner. «Darling stay with me, ’cause you are all I need…» You paused and looked at me, as if I had guessed and, was genuinely begging you to stay with me.
*****
19.02.2011 – Nati was the romantic one. He wanted to get married on Valentine’s Day but, there was no Saturday 14th of February in 2011. So, we got married on Saturday 19th of February 2011.
I didn’t know if Nati was the right one when I married him. I only knew he was special and, I would regret not to. I married him and, I loved him more as I was discovering his flaws. Maybe, this is what I like the most about him. His flaws and his little obsessions.
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong singing « They Can’t Take That Away From Me »
There are many many crazy things
That will keep me loving you
And with your permission
May I list a few
The way you wear your hat
The way you sip your tea
The memory of all that
No, no they can’t take that away from me
The way your smile just beams
The way you sing off key
The way you haunt my dreams
No, no they can’t take that away from me
We may never never meet again, on the bumpy road to love
Still I’ll always, always keep the memory of
The way you hold your knife
The way we danced until three
The way you changed my life
No, no they can’t take that away from me
No, they can’t take that away from me
Love lies in little things.
The way you played with my fingers,
The way you kissed my nose…
Nati was the right one for me.
Sometimes, he comes in my dreams. He once said «If you have any idea how many times, I have been trying to tell you that I love you.» His visitations come with a sensation, his love from afar. Something powerful that erases everything else. Doubts, fears and pains melt like ice cream under the Mexican sun.
*****
10.03.2016 – Nati died six years ago. I feel sad that I’m not desperate anymore.
Long after he died, I was still feeling his pain. Everything was tinted in grey, as if his final act had redefined who he was. I couldn’t rewind the film roll, back to his genuine smile. I was stuck in his rainy days.
Grieving is not a healing process but, a transformation. Like for an onion, I peel off the layers and I cry. Who I was in his eyes, died with him. Our private jokes are lost. The future we imagined, vanished. I’m the only safe left, for our memories. I peel the dead skin off so I become.
Along the process, some grew up with me. Others are still holding on, to my old skin, expecting me to return to my old self. They say, «Move on». But I don’t fit anymore. I’m moving forward, leaving them behind. Another loss.
Nati is dead but he is not. His soul continues to live within mine. In the tangible world, it feels like we have grown apart. He became a memory, an old yellowing and dog-eared photograph, frozen in time.
In the other world, I see us closer. The walls fall and I see him. I see beyond the false beliefs caused by our wounds. Maybe he does too. He said, «I was blind, now I see». There is expansion once we heal our swollen wounds. There is room for something other than fear or pain. A purple light filled with endless possibilities, the tranquil force of an emerging lion, the serenity of my salty skin a la playa de San Agustillo 1, the unconditional love of a white dog with blueberry dots, a new language to express what was never said.
I see him in who I have become. Maybe I left the valley of my despair.
[1] at San Agustillo beach, in Spanish
The flower without her Little Prince 