Does grief ever leave? When does it arrive?
As I sat at the kitchen table with a woman 50 years older than me, I saw the kind of grief in her eyes that wasn’t sad or heavy, but the kind of raw grief that lives in all of us as humans. The kind of grief that we come into this world with.
She told me that maybe she began to feel it when she was forced out of her mother’s womb.
The separation from innate wholeness that begins our life, sending us out on a journey desperately trying to return to that place of connection, but constantly fearing death as the vehicle that could take us there.
Her grief deepened as life unfolded and led her to the mountains of Italy on a quest to learn about the history of sculpting. She stumbled upon the medium after her husband died in her 40s. She described the grief as debilitating, which lasted for almost 10 years. Her outlet became sculpting.
Her art class had planned a trip to Italy and when it got canceled, she decided to travel on her own. She found herself in a rural mountain town in the Toscana region. She stumbled upon an old villa a couple had just put up for sale and stayed there on holiday. They immediately wanted her to buy it. She resisted their offer for as long as she could.
She said no until it wasn’t even a word she could muster up any longer. She said the land pulled her in.
She bought the villa and old barn and began construction.
Her aging mother moved in and they began a new life.
As renovations began, new characters arrived on the scene.
Reinforcements sent to rebuild her heart.
A local Italian man became her teammate in the project and in life.
She told me stories about him in a way that would transport her back to those moments. She’d shake her head at his stubbornness as if they were having a conversation right in front of me. She smiled so big every time his energy entered the conversation. “He was so beautiful,” she said. And he was. She showed me pictures from an old album, displaying the timeline of her life that featured a rugged mountain man, sculpted and chiseled by the elements of life.
He had died years ago and I could see the weight on her heart as a woman who has outlived two partners.
She tended to him as he died and then she tended to her mother as she died.
They both played such a large role in the creation of her Italian sanctuary, I could feel their essence in the walls. She had cared for them as they passed on and now I felt they were returning the favor.
One day she shared with me that her Italian lover had adored a certain tree in the garden, he had planted it for her and on that particular day, it was beginning to bloom. I suggested that maybe he was saying hi to her. She stopped in her tracks, smiled, and said, “Why yes, that’s a lovely thought isn’t it?”
Stories of her mother, and the man she still loved, would weave in and out of our daily conversations and I could see how each emotion she had experienced throughout her life was carved into her face.
Her beauty displays a life fully lived - and she’s still fully living at 84 years old, with no indication of slowing down. Currently, she finds herself tending to her dog and cat who are nearing the end of their lives and I can only hold pure admiration for the ones who outlive all of their companions.
She recounted to me the first time she conceptualized death as a child. She was in the park with her friends and she stumbled upon a dead crow in the grass. She couldn’t understand why it wasn’t up in the air flying around. One of her friends told her it was dead and she said she was never the same. A sense of peace and understanding of nature washed over her and I see how that wisdom has carried her through.
Death is something we all share but it seems to follow some more the others. She seems unbothered by its active presence in her life. She carried her grief gracefully. I wondered if it is a skill you cultivate or something you remember.
She encouraged me, subtly, many times… to surrender to the current.
She never expected to live over 40 years in Italy as a sculptor but when her heart broke, she let herself fall into the river and it carried her here.
Do you have a story on life, loss, and transition to share?
Email me at belovedgateway@gmail.com to schedule a no-cost story session. I am here to witness you in your process and in your power.
My gift to you. <3
Blessing her spirit and yours, for paying attention - being present with her.
Your post made for particularly intriguing reading after listening* to the first two chapters of "The Book of Magic" by Alice Hoffman. She's not an oft read author for me so I can't recommend the book - yet anyway, as I've only finished the first two chapters - but those two are a strong and meaningful meditation on approaching one's death and the grieving by loved ones which are worth the time to read or listen.
*btw, audiobooks are fabulous for when doing mundane chores. Fabulous to have a library in one's back pocket!