My chronic grief

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.

Credit: Melanie Zontone

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.

St Martin en Ré, 2012

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.

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[1] at San Agustillo beach, in Spanish

Death Café or, The loss of the body

The other Monday, I was participating to a Death Café and I cried. I was not sure why. These were not tears of sadness.
Death cafés are places where strangers meet, over tea and cake, to talk about death. It sounds spooky, odd and morbid but, it is not. When we talk about death ultimately, we talk about life… and love.

When Nati took his life, his death cracked me open. He was my lighthouse and, I am left, lost in the dark. In moments of great pain and deep vacuity, I contemplate that door he left opened. From time to time, the knob is nagging at me. I am seized by dizziness.

I had this clear dream not long after he died:

We are in our respective cars, side by side, like if we were ready to engage in a race, on a dusty dirt road. No starting pistol. We drive side by side in the dust. The road becomes narrow. There is space for only one car. You speed up and pass before. I follow you. The road continues along the cliff edge of a grand canyon. You disappear ahead in a dusty cloud. The road is getting narrower. Red flags, safety barriers, construction site ahead. I have to stop. I understand I can’t follow you on that road. I get off the car, look at the horizon. A dusty point. You are no longer here. Silence. I have to stay on this side of life.

I have been struggling with the acceptance of his death because I know he is not dead. I have been struggling with guilt as well, because I can’t say I miss him.
That day, at the Death Café, a lot was said about the loss of the body. And I understood what I was missing. I miss his physicality. I miss the sound of his voice, his laughter. I miss his long silhouette in the kitchen, as he was making diner. I miss laying a kiss, on the back of his neck, while he was preparing his flight plan. I miss holding his hand. I miss his body. I mourn for the loss of his body.

I realize some of my pain is caused by the physical separation. But I know, that death is only a compartment of life.
The partition wall between life and death is as thin as a sheet of paper and, sometimes it tears up. Messages oozes through. Both ways. Synchronicities appear. I saw an arm reaching for me in the Antarctic sky. I saw a flower falling down on my laps, on a Cypriot beach. A bird kissed my nose. And sometimes, worlds meet in my dreams. The compartment is not hermetic. I know you are not dead. Only your body is.

I imagine you, the nose pressed against the window of that compartment, looking at me and trying to get my attention by all means. Paper planes with broken wings a couple of times. I’m listening like a child, with a tin can telephone pressed to my ear, hoping you are pressing the other side, to your ear too.
We are apart from each other, only by a thin sheet of paper. And, that gives me comfort.

As I walk in the streets of San Miguel, I’m thinking: You left with a piece of me. My body feels like an empty container and yet, I feel so much life and love, at the same time. When we have nothing to lose, nothing to look forward, nobody to love; we are open to life and we love everybody. This is why I cried. These were not tears of sadness.

And then, I notice on the cobblestones, two small feathers rolling all over each other, pushed by the wind. I thought of a couple, making love. A small feather and a bigger one. It could be as well, a wink from Nati. I stop and I pick them up, to save them in my wallet with all the other ones. The little things in life. These were tears of love.

Sunset on the rooftop

“Impressive Art” filter or, maybe it is my Mexican wine:
Calixa 2018 – a blend of Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot by Monte Xanic
Mosquitoes are going to be borrachos[1] tonight
Strong wine, a few helpless tears
Not in the wine, never in the wine.
This journey doesn’t get easier
The floor is more comfortable than the chairs,
Still warm. Blame on the burning sun.
A chilly breeze, an incandescent sky.
Nothing is permanent

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[1] “Drunk” in Spanish