All of us who have lost something precious know the true cost—not of dying,
but of love lost. Of connection severed.
In fact, I have died many times—just not yet physically.
With every missed opportunity to call, every missed hug, every lost chance to repair bonds that were broken.
—
The liminal space of longing—for someone who now only lives in your bones, weeps in your dreams, whispers in your heart.
A prison made of loss and grief can’t hold the depths of love.
I haven’t returned to Greece for years.
And I’m consistently asked ‘why’ by friends, relatives, colleagues, random acquaintances.
I have never once been upfront about the true reason I haven’t gone back. The truth can invite pain. Real, raw and unflinching bone-deep pain. And that requires mutual understanding, a porosity and thirst for compassion. One that many lack or put in the storefront, as display, with no real depth.
—
The truth is, someone I loved died.
Unexpectedly. Young. Unfairly.
And I remember the sensations, like it was yesterday—
but it wasn’t.
I remember my body tensing up, and then numbing down.
Limb by limb.
Still,
I remain unthawed.
So I stayed away.
“Yeah, I wanted to see other places and people.”
“I couldn’t make it, I didn’t have the time.”
Soon, I’m going back.
I brace for the homecoming ache.
The mere thought…
How tender the breeze will be, when it brushes upon my sunburnt skin.
The sweetness of the morning thaw when I walk barefoot amongst the fig trees.
I am looking forward to standing in the courtyard where we used to drink coffee, where the oak tree spreads like generations over the soil of my heart.
Reminding me gently that a soul never dies—
It finds home in new ways.
It finds voice in the rattling of the leaves in autumn.
Grief in the downpour of summer.
Love in the ground that grinds their bones into ash and grows forests anew.
—
Don’t forget me.
I won’t forget you.
Love me—in all my madness.
Even the wild yields
to the unending bond of blood
and the roots that remember.
