Their giggle, their smile, please,
Stay a while
A playdate, a walk among the stars,
Promise you’ll go, go so far,
And through it all, oblivion is widespread,
We’ll return, find a way, make a cozy shed,
Walk together, a meter or a mile,
Stay a while, stay a while.
You’ve often heard home is not a place but a person.
As romantic as it may sound, there is a difference between a house and a home. What makes a house a home is the people you share it with. You can almost hear the echos of laughter, the warm moments shared in the sanctuary you once made together.
How do you collect yourself?
How do you learn to live in a world where they cannot be seen?
How do you make them stay when they have already left?
Grief is devastating. You need a visitor in your empty house surrounded by lifelessness. Someone who knows your suffering and opens an umbrella, keeping you dry, so you don’t catch a cold.
In your moments of despair, where you’re finding reasons to escape it all, author Laura Formentini gives you twenty-one reasons to stay with her book, Twentyone Olive Trees.
Stay
“They left.
Why shouldn’t you?
If only they’ll be closer to you that way.”
It’s okay not to feel at home in your own home. After all, they were your person.
Imagine them sitting right beside you as you contemplate these thoughts. Would they want you to leave the home you built together or be there to protect it and remain as safe as can be? You see, we often overlook the purpose of a home.
At its very core, the purpose of a home is to protect you from the outside world. It keeps you warm in the harshest colds; it is there to nurture you, for you to find peace.
No, we’re not talking about walls and furniture, but the memories that have laid the bricks of sanctuary in your heart.
Don’t cry because it ended; smile because their life happened.
It’s Not Easy
It’s easier said than done to move forward. Fight the intrusive thoughts that feed on your weaknesses and hinder your progress.
The question is, do you really need to fight?
For fighting your thoughts breeds conflict.
Passing isn’t the end of something but the beginning of something entirely new.
Laura Formentini highlights how death is a process of transformation. One that takes time to realize and acknowledge.
She fought her battles, her moments of weakness where she tried to come to terms with the passing of her beautiful son, Blaise. Instead of fighting, she let her emotions flow.
Meditation in writing, word by word, letter by letter, she renovated the house she found empty.
In her book Twentyone Olive Trees, the author explores the idea that the fate of a home is determined by those who live in it, and uses stories and poems to find catharsis.
She emphasizes journalling and speaking to yourself honestly. A practice that will help you resist the urge to fight your emotions and truly let them flow. She describes the process as “liberating.” Make sure you handwrite your thoughts. The process needs to be as intimate as you can make it.
When you lose someone, a part of you leaves with them. Through engaging in conversations with yourself, you can gain a better understanding of who you are and facilitate your journey of self-discovery..
Way Back Home
As Coldplay would say, “Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones.”
Laura’s book is about that feeling of resolution when the tears finally dry up, and you look up at the sky, walking step by step. Your memories are projected onto the sky as the stars shimmer off your cheek. You find yourself back in the place you wanted to escape. Each fable and poem gives you a new message of hope. That life is worth living.
A new beginning, a new dawn – a light at the end of the tunnel.
As you walk, remember them watching over you with the smile you two shared, keeping the memories locked in your heart. This time, however, you visit not in the grief of what has ended but in celebrating all the moments spent together.
Cherished in full.
Once again, you will build your home.
Once again, it will be filled with memories in tribute to the ones gone by, but in anticipation of the future.
Stories yet to be etched, life; poetry in motion. Begin your journey into your new home with a companion in Laura Formentini, as her words will pick you up when you’re feeling down.
