gina laventura

One day we all are going to wear black

I’m sitting in a room full of grief. Grief as thick and dense as the air in a poorly ventilated room on a hot summer afternoon. There are women wrapped in dark clothes, young men handing black coffee and black tea to the mourning mother, sisters, siblings, relatives and other guests. Though displaced somehow as I didn’t even know the departed, I found one thing to be true: when it comes to emotions, there is no difference between us.

While I’m trying to understand bits and pieces of the kind of sermon that is held in a language I haven’t learned properly, I see men trying to keep up their strong postures while suppressing the tears that try to find their way up and out, to relieve the soul, to let the heavy hearts breathe. I see women pressing each other’s hands firmly.

The last time I met these people we all have been dancing cheerfully and joyfully at a wedding. And I think: maybe that’s what unites us. Joy and grief. We’re together in joy and in grief.

And while I’m pondering, suddenly the wailing sound of an aunt’s voice rips the mumbling noise of a grieving room apart. And as the aunt approaches, I can feel grief cross the room like a domino effect. And I know I’ll be the next stone to fall. The trembling around the heart area emerges, breathing gets heavier. I look to my right and see a glittering reflection in the eyes of the woman I came with. I press her hand firmly. She presses back. Yes, we’re in this together.

Grief is grief, no matter where you come from, which language you speak, which food you eat, whether our traditions differ. Grief carves its mark onto your soul or tears it apart, nevertheless. Just as a few months ago we were all united in joy, cause laughter is universal and doesn’t need translation, so neither does grief, in which we’re sitting now, together.

I rub the departed’s sister’s arm and shoulder as her tired face tries to produce a smile. Another three women just uttered their condolences to the grieving mother, and I wish I could take a little bit of that heavy weight from her heart for a minute. I wish I could hug her, so she could let her aching soul rest against my body for just an instant. But I remain where I was seated. I feel detached and yet involved.

I wish I could tell the young man who has just lost a friend – and whose memory is replaying scenes shared with the departed that are reflected in his watery eyes – that it’s okay to cry, that it is human to grieve, with soul, mind and body. That it’s okay if the soul wants to express itself through the bodily reaction of crying, a cathartic act. But I remain silent and just shake his hand and utter my condolences.

Maybe in silence everything is already said.

It’s as if we all knew the words that anyone could utter in that moment.

The thick air of grief is numbing any other thought, and we just sit there, together, grieving, mourning.

And still and yet, in the face of death life becomes even more valuable, more worthwhile.

I wonder whose wailing cry might mourn my departure one day. What will be the sermon spoken at my funeral?

And suddenly I realise: we will all lose a loved one one day. That’s a fact. One day each and every single one of us will sit there in black clothes, mourning the loss of a loved one. Or if we avoid it by passing away before any of our loved ones can, then we should know that someone else will be sitting there dressed in black mourning our departure.

One day we all are going to wear black. One day we all are going to cry and grieve. But we won’t be alone in that. Never.

And I hope until that day we will also be joined and not alone in all the joyful moments of life. I pray that each and every single one of us will have lived life to the fullest until the unavoidable day will swallow our earthly existence.

We are one. In joy, in pain, in grief, in love. Despite our differences.

Yesterday I sat in a room full of grief.

And it taught me loads about life.