Dare Amore: a letter of grief and lesson learnt

self-portrait in Cagliari, Sardegna (2020)

October 9th, 2020

Dear grandma,

I don’t know where you are, but I know I don’t have an address to send you this letter. I don’t know if you can feel anything, but I’ve got to pour my heart out somewhere in hopes that somehow, you can.

I read your letters tirelessly. Sometimes, from start to finish. Sometimes, only my favourite sentences. Sometimes, I can’t even look at them. Sometimes, I want to engrave them on my skin so they never get lost.

I think that I am loved by some, but as you did — no one will ever be able to. You are the most special person in my life and I loved you. In quietude and from afar. Not because the feeling didn’t exist, but because that is how I am. People like me, we love in voluntary confinement and avoidance to verbalise — so we don’t put our hearts on the line, so we minimize risk. But it is because I loved you so quietly that I often judge and hate myself.

You deserved more than occasional tenderness. Maybe I subconsciously feared to accept the love you gave, so I refused to reciprocate. I pulled myself out, and pushed you away, almost as if in fear, or premonition that having you too close would mean one day having to cut an even stronger bond. And be abandoned, again, by someone who makes me feel a glimmer of love. But that was my mistake. You always told me that loving is always worth it. And avó, in the middle of your little whims and neediness, you knew exactly what you meant.

But what is it worth to say it now if you aren’t here to listen? What is it worth to keep swimming now if you’re not standing at the finish line?

I don’t understand life. In fact, I understand it less every day.

I thought your golden age was yet to come. I thought karma would give you the good life, happiness, and warmth you deserved. But no, avó. Destiny put you down, threw stones, fired off bullets, completely deceived you, and in the end, it choked you mercilessly.

You had the worst death I could ever imagine. A death I wouldn’t even wish on the person that I hate and resent the most on this planet. I can’t imagine your desperation as you silently suffocated over your meal on that Saturday lunch, and felt life evaporate from your fragile body. I can’t help but wonder if you thought of me although you hadn’t seen me that day. I can’t help but doubt if you actually heard me when I spoke to you as you were entangled in a million tubes on that hospital bed. I can’t stop feeling anger, hatred, resentment, and envy of all those who are alive while you didn’t have that right.

You weren’t allowed to age well. You weren’t allowed to stay. You weren’t allowed to see the great-grandchildren I could one day give you, nor the wedding that you so eagerly dreamt for me. You weren’t allowed to see, talk, touch, embrace, and tell me one more time that you are proud of me. To hear me say that you are the sweetest and most loving person that came into my life. And left. Too soon.

You were the only person in the world I willingly hugged with all of my heart. You were the only person in the world who knew how to love me with all of yours. You were the only person in the world I repeatedly called beautiful, just to see you shyly smile and tell me (as I rolled my eyes) that no, you aren’t beautiful now, but back in the day you have to admit that you really were a great catch.

Avó, I don’t want to be selfish and I don’t know if this is it, but I really want you to come back. But no matter how much I cry, pray, beg… You will not return. That is the angst that unsettles me.

Every day I miss you more and to be honest, it has been a struggle to move on from the memory of a world with you to the reality of a world without you. I ask myself how cruel can the coherence of destiny really be. I ask myself how is it that we are surrounded by so much logic, rationale, and precision, yet all the same, overflown by an equivalent level of absurdly random occurrences. I ask myself why have I chosen a career that abides by science, data, and numbers, all of which give me close certainty (or great odds) on the final result if my spirit is drowning in the hypothesis that no scientific development can reassure me.

What is left of this house, village, country, earth — without you, avó? What is left of all that I want the most, if what I wanted the most was to have you alive, and one day give you the joy of seeing me succeed?

Who can save me from this agony? Who can make it go away? Who could ever love me without borders, without completely knowing who I am, and even then, see in me the magic that you saw, and really want to love and accept and celebrate me, without begging me for exact reciprocity, without pressuring me for retribution, without suffocating me with keeping scores, without overbearing me with expectations, and without disappearing all of the sudden as you did?

What do I know of life without feeling — although distant and silent — the permanent love coming from inside your little house in the village? What do I know of living in absolute loneliness, without the number 234781678 being a reassurance that if I call, you will be on the other line? What do I know of driving home, without looking to my left and seeing the road that would lead to your arms? What do I know of laughter, as I no longer remember yours? What do I know of celebrations, without the annual fights between me and Aunt Maria to determine with which side of the family you will be spending Christmas that year?

You weren’t the gran that cooked well or baked amazing loaves of bread for the whole family. You were the gran that gave the very best of what you knew — tenderness. And isn’t that the greatest offering of all?

I’d love to keep motivating humans, telling them that all of it is worth it and that in the end, we get what we deserve. But avó, I feel like an imposter sometimes. Because you didn’t get what you deserved. You got everything you didn’t deserve. Life gave you sickness, you gave love. Life gave you aggression, you gave love. Life gave you betrayal, and still, you gave love.

You wore your heart on your sleeve fearlessly. And what a fool I was for not admiring it at the time. In you, I never saw a superhero. In you, I never saw a strong woman. Even as a child, I always saw you beyond that.

Because in you, I saw humanity. In you, I saw that we can give so much without giving a thing. In you, I saw that being an adult doesn’t mean being invincible, it means showing strength and simultaneously exposing true frailty in the midst of it all.

Life taught me that not all that goes around, comes around, nor all that leaves, returns, and that it is possible to take the hit without staying for payback time, or receiving an award for remaining resilient to the end.

And you, you taught me that if the point of life is to love, then we should do it loud and clear, every single day of our lives. Because tomorrow…

What do we know about tomorrow?

Orto Botanico di Cagliari (2020)