No mud, no lotus

A lesson in forgetting and remembering and moving through grief

In the middle of August, we found out that my Nonna had pancreatic cancer. She was given a few days left to live. I’ve never lost anybody who I’ve loved as deeply as her. There was pain, there was intense sadness, there was grief, but there was also blessings; a time for joy and a time to give thanks. Not many people have a Nonna like I had. She was totally dedicated to us; witty, sharp, loving, loyal, honest. She was so special to me. I can’t write down exactly who she was, but she was something else. I don’t think it’s possible to convey what she meant to me. But perhaps you have someone similar in your life; a special, irreplaceable person whom you love fiercely, and you know what I am attempting to convey in messy words. And now she is gone. 

We took her to my uncle’s house, all 10 of us moved in, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, grandchildren and cousins; she was never alone. Around her bedside we sung corny Italian songs, recited Mary Oliver love poems, prayed the rosary, brought in cuttings of lavender, fed her small sips of frothy cappuccino, gossiped and laughed and wept, massaged her legs with rose oil, bathed her, moisturised her, stroked her hair, and found each other again. Even in her death, she gave, bringing us together as a family. 

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In the last year I’ve found myself obsessed with death. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Reading about it. Meditating on it. Questioning it. I think I’m just obsessed with the question we all ask someday: Who am I? When you start to ask that question, you start to ask thousands of other questions, and part of who we are, is our experience of death. What is it to die? What is it to live? The beauty, the brutality; the gift of life. What it means to love somebody so deeply, makes their death even more swallowing. I found myself awed by the trees for their ability to let go of their leaves and not to shrivel up and die with the pain. But to rest in their mini deaths, to know that spring is coming. The experience of death has taught me to be appreciative of pain, because without that deep grief, there would be no deep love. Do we ever mourn deeply if we never love deeply?

I’ve been reflecting on the year that’s been so far. According to most metrics, I’ve had a terrible year. I’ve gone months without income, lost more Instagram followers than I can keep track of, had two epileptic seizures, had my license revoked, had a really awful bout of Covid, closed down my 3 businesses, and on top of that, my Nutrition degree has the nerve to be mostly chemistry units. But I’ve had a really great year; the best year I’ve ever had I would say. I’m very content, very pleased, very grateful, very joyous. There has been ‘losses’ but nothing is loss. It’s all gain, because there is something to learn from every experience, there is something beautiful in everything.

Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist spiritual leader, has said, "No mud, no lotus." You need both — they come as one. You don’t have to go through the mud to achieve the lotus, they arrive at the same time; the seed is in the mud. If all we can see is mud, we forget about the little seed that’s doing it’s best to grow. It’s this ability, this gratitude for everything, for life and death, for sun and rain, for cake and chemistry, it’s all good! It’s all a blessing. 

Sometimes I forget about the seed. I’m not always positive. Sometimes I lay in bed gripped by fear and panic, and often in the very same day I stand transfixed with joy by a wee water droplet glinting in the sunshine. When I’m in the midst of a depressive episode I always remind myself of the temporary notion of this experience. Right foot, left foot, move through, move through. And the sun shines again and I remember. Forgetting and remembering, forgetting and remembering. Understanding that it’s not going to sort itself out and just be a straight line standard curve up and up forever. It’s going to be up/down, down and up, and I’ve accepted that, and it’s all good. Who knows? Maybe the sun wouldn’t shine so bright if the sky didn’t become so grey. 

We are always saying: I’ll do it when I have more time, when my schedule clears up, when everything is not so hectic… or things will start to get better for me when I get my licence back, when my acne is cleared, when I lose weight, when my kids move out, when I find a husband, when when when. That’s when my life begins.

If I’ve learned anything from my small time on this planet it’s that it never gets better and stays better. There is no perfect time in the future to start living. As much as we try to pause the moment that is life, to freeze our faces, to maintain our bodies, to hold that one perfect moment forever and ever, we can’t do it. Life is constantly in a state of flux; growing and evolving, creating and expanding. That’s what is beautiful and magic and exciting and wondrous about our lives. It gets better and it gets worse… and then it continues. Practicing meditation reminds me of this truth, we practice continually returning to the breathe, returning to the moment. We forget and then we remember.

This isn’t a call to ‘do the thing today’, to make a list and fulfil your goals and find that perfect ever elusive morning routine. It’s simply a call to return to your breathe and trust in the truth that is the beauty of life. Behind every good day is a bad day to come and behind every bad day is a good day to come. We can rely on this. If we’re lucky, some days we might even recognise there is no good or bad day; only precious, flowing life. Life is happening now. There is no perfect time to remember, right now is the only time. There is always the time to be joyous, to laugh, to smile. It’s always here waiting for us, waiting for us in death, waiting for us in rain, waiting for us in croissants. It’s there, it’s here, it’s now. 

Sending many warm hugs,

Madalin