The Beginning-Paris

The nonfiction story below was featured in the 2017 edition of the Petigru Review. It is the beginning of my grief journey and the beginning of my book. All beautiful stories should start in Paris.

The Life of Death

This is what I know for sure. I am 36 years-old and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Three weeks ago, I contemplated filling up my gas tank, grabbing a few bottles of Diet Sunkist and driving the opposite direction of home with no game plan. I was not sure where I would go, but for the first time in my regimented and planned out life, I was willing to leave it all behind in order to find myself.

Nine months ago, my mother who was the most important person in my life died of a rare uterine cancer. One hundred and eleven days later, I took my dad off of life support after he had a catastrophic ruptured aortic aneurysm. Dad collapsed at home on a Wednesday morning in mid-February. I remember waking up to thunder and wondered why it was thundering in February. Later, I would conclude that it was my mom telling me to check my phone for the missed call from the hospital. The next few days were a blur. Hospital machines, blood draining away from his body so fast, it filled up almost every canister in the hospital. Dialysis, tubes, medications, and vigils followed in those three days. On the third day it ended. Thirty-five years with my parents and just like that in a span of one hundred and eleven days, it was over.

A few weeks after Dad died, I found out I was expecting my first child. Through all of my grief, for a brief, fleeting moment, I saw hope. However, hope I had found out in my life is short-lived. Two and a half months into my pregnancy, we found out there was no heart beat and our little baby had died. Two days before my first Mother’s Day without Mom, I had surgery and my little silent baby was lifted to heaven and placed in the loving hands of its grandparents. Grief does not even begin to describe my state of being. I had so many emotions spinning inside me; I felt as if I would fall to the floor and never have the strength to get up again. I was afraid the spinning grief inside my body had killed my child. It was devastating.

I stand at the gas pump, wearing black patent heels and a black dress with tiny white polka dots. I let the soothing waves of wind wash over me. The sky is a soft white with tiny tendrils of pink clouds scattering across the sky like bales of hay waiting to be sent to the grain mill. I smile for a moment feeling the energy of my mom coming down from the heavens patting my cheek with love. The day was so glorious and bright. How can it be so beautiful all around me, but inside I'm a tornado. I remembered what my Reiki healer Kara told me: in order to fully grieve the loss of someone dear to us, we must "grieve well." Grief should be angry and spinning like a tornado. It should take you, suck you in, roll you around and take your breath away. Grief is not sitting at the base of the cliff and not jumping because of fear. You have to jump and grow your wings on the way down. So, there I was again with a Diet Sunkist in hand, a full tank of gas, and heavy heart. I knew what I had to do. I had recently been accepted into a Summer Yoga and Writer’s retreat in France for two weeks. I emailed the director and accepted the invitation. I called my travel agent, booked a flight to Paris, bought a floppy hat and a French phrase book. I decided I need to grieve, and what better place to do that than France. I spoke very little French and my yoga left a lot to be desired. One week later, I will board my transcontinental flight, try to not run away from grief, but meet it head on, with a glass of French wine, notebook and vast library of memories.

Dad If you were lucky enough to know my dad, Nick, you knew you would never go hungry. This was the Italian way and my dad lived this philosophy until his final days. If you needed food, he would show up with bags of canned chicken, rice, soup, and especially bags of toilet paper. My dad had a little hoarding problem with buying socks and underwear as well. If any of my brother's friends or my boyfriend came over, they always left with a bag of new underwear and socks. I laugh when I think about this. I think I finally understand what Dad was doing.

Not only did Dad want to feed your soul with food, he also wanted to make sure your butt was always clean, and your feet always warm. I guess now that I think about it, this must be the recipe for a good life. I know this sounds strange, but I have been blessed the last 15 years since I moved away for college with never having to buy my own toilet paper. Every time Mom and Dad would come for a visit or I would go home, I always left with canned chicken and toilet paper. I just looked in my pantry last week, and cried when I saw the last 12 pack of toilet paper sitting there sad and lonely on the bottom shelf. It made me sad to think after it's gone a piece of him will be gone from my home as well. I am contemplating whether I should keep just one roll and encase in a plastic cube with a mini hammer and sign that says "In case of emergency, break and use- Love Dad."

Mom If you were lucky enough to know my mom, Linda, then you knew you had a steadfast friend and supporter for life. Linda was a cheerleader for everyone who was lucky enough to know her. She was generous, kind, loving, protective, supportive, and made sure everyone else's needs were met before she did anything for herself. She was that mother who worked a full-time job and was up until three in the morning frosting 100 cupcakes for the bake sale. Mom loved books and having read a great book, she would often give it away so someone else could enjoy the journey. She would be so tired when she put me to bed for the fifth time, but always had the strength to read me as many bedtime stories as I wanted. As a child, she was poor, and they did not have enough money for books. She spent many of her days huddled in the corners of the library reading everything she could get her hands on. When she had children, she vowed her children would never be denied a book. She told me I could always have a book and many times .

I chose a book over a toy, because it meant so much more. I like to think this is why I am a writer, because Mom was generous enough to give me the gift of stories. Mom was also a skilled multi-tasker, managing to run a large department with ease and efficiency. Many people told me how much she did for that company and her employees that went above and beyond her role. She also made sure every employee felt important. She was secret Santa every year to the dozens of workers, making sure they had a little something special in their box for several weeks. She would give them note cards, fuzzy socks, bookmarks, books, mini snow globes or mini stockings filled with the "good chocolate." Mom was also involved in multiple charities and events around town. She spread herself thin, but loved every minute of being a Red Hat member, Dazzling Diva, raising money for the Red Cross and serving on their board. She was even a senior reagent with the Moose Club. I am now a proud member too! So, as Dad made sure your belly was fed, butt clean, and feet warm, Mom showered you with the warmth of a hug, a special treat, and a warm heart.

The last few months, I have had the daunting task of cleaning out my parents’ house. It is a small, modest brick home with very few updates that have been made in the 42 years they lived there. I sift through the boxes of memories and find cards people wrote Mom thanking her for a gift or a note to Dad thanking him for a good deed. I finally realize the answers to so many questions that I had over the years. Why did they not get a new washer and dryer when the old one broke? They knew the lady who owned a local laundromat and supported her business by going to do their laundry there every Saturday. They didn't own nice furnishings, just basic tables and chairs and a non-formal brown couch. My mom and dad shared one car for years so my brother and I had reliable cars when we moved away for college. They wanted to make sure we had money for groceries or enough money to take piano lessons or buy art supplies, drum sticks or enough money to go on the class field trip to DC. This is why they went without getting the dishwasher fixed, instead washing the dishes by hand with no complaining. My parents lived “without” many things, so others could live "with." Today, I thank them and remember them every time I pass rows of toilet paper or sock displays in stores or the feeling in my heart when I volunteer at the shelter. As I pack my bags for my up-coming trip to France tomorrow, I make sure to pack a bookmark and the writer's kit Mom gave me and plenty of the socks and underwear Dad gave me. I may still be lacking a proper French vocabulary and my yoga is still a little wobbly, but my soul will be fed by the food of France, my butt will be clean and my feet toasty warm. Thanks Mom and Dad. Bon Voyage!

Paris I think the most important thing for any new traveler to do, especially one like myself who has decided to run away from her life to a foreign country, is to upgrade to first class. This makes the fear of flying (thanks to the free-flowing champagne) worth the extra money. It sure did the trick for me. I also can say the lobster appetizer, fresh baked olive roll, filet Mignon with wine reduction, cloth napkin and butler in the sky was a nice touch. I also enjoyed the bedroom slippers, toiletries bag, rose water to spritz on my face and my fold-out bed with personal television. Those sealed the deal. Let’s just say I was not sure I ever needed to leave the airplane. I was already smitten and had not even changed time zones. The flight was perfect. Once we descended, I opened the window shade and a beautiful rainbow spread across the lush, great landscape.

My trip to France was amazing. I meditated, journaled every day and soaked in the clean air. I woke to the calls of roosters, drank wine, laughed and cried. I met a dozen other women who were experiencing similar feelings. We typed on keyboards, stretched our legs on yoga mats and opened up our hearts to the pain. We let grief move us. We laughed over meals and train rides as we strolled through quaint Parisian streets sipping steamy cups of coffee. We toured caves, castles, ruins, and towers. No matter where I went my mom was there, not just in the locket around my neck, but in the air. I knew the trip was exactly what I needed. I slept peacefully, exercised, and learned how to be alone with myself and my thoughts. It was the most necessary thing I could have ever done for myself. It was necessary because I needed to be away from life for long enough to learn how to navigate grief and learn it to be OK if it stays with me forever. I cannot allow grief to define me. And yet it does and will.

Right before I went to France, I read the best-selling nonfiction memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. It's one woman's journey alone on a 1,100 mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail after the death of her mother. The author starts out as a weary, promiscuous 26 year-old woman four years after her mother’s death, and moments from the end of a marriage. She happens across a book at an REI store one day about the Pacific Crest Trail, a mostly desolate stretch of national hiking trails that starts in New Mexico and runs the entire length of the west coast all the way up to Canada. After dabbling in drugs, sleeping around and divorce, Strayed spirals out from grief and makes a decision to hike 1,100 miles alone on the PCT in order to deal with her grief. What she finds in herself, in others and in nature stayed with me long after she puts her brown hiking books away and packed away her writing pen.

The author has a way with words in exploring the past and shedding new light on her life as she hikes through New Mexico all the way up the western seaboard until she reached "The Bridge of the Gods" in Oregon. As I read through the miles with Strayed on the trail, I too was on her journey learning how to take grief and use it to create positivity. I finished reading the book during the same week in September that Strayed finished her hike some eighteen years earlier. I laughed, cried, sobbed, wailed, and breathed with Strayed. Her prosy narrative was just what the doctor ordered for my weary, grief-stricken soul. The earthly, poetic language washed over me like holy water at church and the words were Band-Aids over my fresh grief wounds. I know a book is fantastic when I cry at the end because not only was it life-altering, but I’m sad it's over. Before I read this book, I was at a crossroads in life. I was not sure where to turn, who to turn to, and not sure what the future without my parents would hold. I may not have hiked a trail for 1,100 miles alone, but I did take a journey in order to heal. I journeyed 3,500 miles from home at my most weariest and joined other women on a healing and restorative journey. I was searching for myself but found my mom instead.

I found my mother in the trees that were wide-open and full of hope. I found her in the wind. I heard her call to me in the laughter of little children one afternoon as I meditated in the wet, green grass. I found my mother joining me during evening yoga sessions and when I opened up my hips and raised my arms to the sky, I let grief out. I found her in the photos I took throughout my journey, showing up as a beautiful purple light that swelled around my face and comforted me. I found my mother's spirit in other women on my journey who made me feel the love only women can radiate out from their souls. I found her on the Eiffel Tower in Paris as rain trickled out of the sky and formed goose pimples on my bare arms telling me I should have worn long sleeves. I found my mother staring at me through the deep, charcoal eyes of a French horse named Romeo.

I found her in English breakfast tea at a café in Chantilly, France as the warm, soothing feeling washed over me when I drank it. I found my mother staring back at me when I looked in the mirror after crying and for the first time in my life, I was happy I looked like my mother. I had her soft lines hugging my eyes and the same full blue veins running under the soft skin of my hands.

I found my mother in the brilliantly colored vocal rooster that woke me each morning and welcomed me each night. I found her in the yellow and black butterfly that floated into the writing salon and delicately balanced on the wooden coffee table for over eight hours. And, I found my mother literally in the subway station in Paris when the locket containing her ashes fell off. I finally found her laying behind me on the ground. I found out I do not have to let her go, because she never left me.

Grief is a Rock

Grief is a like a Rock Sometimes it feels flat in the palm of your hand, a smooth, rounded pebble from a mountain stream. Sometimes it’s a jagged sedimentary rock filled with years of build-up and it’s so brittle it breaks off in your hand, large chunks first that fall apart like sand between your fingers. The memories spilling out. Other times, grief is a large quiet rock, a coastline’s barrier rising out from the sea like the Great Orme Rock in Whales, rounded on sides, it’s wide birth a bounty being battered with cold, gray waves. I feel like grief is a rock because it has many stages and takes a long time to form. Time will age it’s appearance. Sometimes we have to be a rock too when it comes to grief. For me, it was one of the first stages I went through. At first, I was in shock, but realized I had to write my mom’s obituary, plan her funeral, select her church music, order prayer cards, frame photos for a memorial table and so on. I was so busy trying to make everything special for mom’s funeral, I didn’t have time to initially grieve her like I needed. I walked around in a fog, making the motions but not diving into grief’s abysses. I was the flat rock, cold and hard. After the funeral when I finally got home, my rock exterior finally started to break away and I cried for days after that, sometimes my eyes swelled shut. Death was only the beginning. But it was not the end. Mom had a journey to go on. I was going to make sure she did. One of the woman I met on my trip to France was a young woman named Janet. She lived in South Carolina, just a state below from me. She had recently lost her father and was also dealing with her own grief trying to find a way to navigate through it. I remember thinking I was running away from my grief to France and when I went there, the women I met were dealing with the same thing. We ran away and toward the same thing at the same time. Funny how things happen that way. I believe I was meant to go to France, to meet new beautiful friends, to see grief from someone else's point of view. To see it from another angle. Janet was in the process of renovating a property in Llandudno, Whales and had planned trips there over the course of a few years to turn the large house into a holiday rental. She said she would be happy to help take moms ashes on her journey. Just a few short months after I started my ash project in summer of 2015, Janet sent me the beautiful pictures of mom’s ashes at the Great Orme Rock which is a large limestone healdland that juts out into the northern sea in Whales. The rock is referred to as “Cyngreawdr Fynydd” by the 12th-century poet Gwalchmai ap Meilyr. Its English name derives from the Old Norse word for sea serpent. It may have been named that because sailors when approaching the large rock jutting up from the sea said it looked like a serpent. It rises up 679 feet from the sea with cool gray limestones. Janet took a walk that day and took the cable car/tram to the top and tried to find a location that would allow for wide views below. It took her about three hours round trip to take her walk that beautiful day during the summer of 2015.

The Great Orme has many animals that are only found there like the silver-studded blue butterfly. You can also see wild Kashmor goats with large pointy horns and shaggy coats. And one of the largest Bronze Age mines is down the road. The Great Orme Rock is just across the sea from Ireland. How close mom came to her final resting place on one of her first stops. I'm so grateful to have met Janet. She is kind, funny, and it was great fun getting to know her. I am forever grateful to her and all of the people who were willing to help me with this project and open up about how grief changed their own landscapes. For Janet, grief sometimes grabs a hold and changes colors. “Someone recently described our heart being like a circle. Grief colors everything when it happens. We build a bigger circle around it and that includes a lot of light. Grief hits again and again, colors everything, until we grow that circle yet again. I liked that explanation.” Janet says. What a wonderful way to think of grief and its many circles and colors. Grief can help you grow and not shrink into yourself. It can be a smooth, flat, or a jagged rock like a serpent. It can be whatever you need it to be.