Adiós Nonino

Around this time last year, I was feeling heartbroken. But by November 1st, I decided, it was time to take matters into my own hands and flip to a new page. Merely a few weeks later, I get a call from a friend. Suddenly a relative of some close family friends passed away.

Grief
I was fortunate enough to have met this cheerful-bundle of joy persona several times. The funeral was filled with people all looking at each other with the same expression of confusion and disbelief. That first stage of grief: ‘How did this even happen? How did we ended up here?’

I left with that same feeling. That night I called my parents, and reminded myself of my recurring new year’s resolution. Tell my loved ones: “I love you”. It is a more loaded phrase when you put the I in front, it indicates intention to be put into action. In my culture, whenever someone randomly blatantly expresses love in this form. The response is: ‘Are you feeling okay?’

Grandmother
An even harder lesson to teach to an older generation. In the words of my grandmother: Love isn’t said it is felt by actions. However, I still craved to know. So, regularly when I called with my grandmother, before we hung up, I would ask her: “Do you love me?”. It took a while before she understood my request. Months later she caved and said: “Si, mi yu”, meaning: yes my child. 

I was overjoyed, it meant so much to me to hear those words. It meant even more that at her 93 years of age she realized that I needed those exact words of affirmation from her.

Another grief
As abruptly as November came to an end, my aunt passed away in the hospital after a brief illness. That was a very difficult time. In the new year, at the beginning of February, another close family friend left us, and not a week later, my grandmother. There were still so many things I wanted to ask and tell her; I wished I could have FaceTimed with her one more time. Exactly a month later, a friend passed away. It all piled up. And every time, that same New Year’s resolution resurfaced. Did I include them and the rest of the people around me enough in my resolution, to let them know how I felt about them? And more importantly: did I take action to put words into deeds?

Looking back
What a year this has been; I have loved and lost, and so I grieved. Because grief is the price we pay for love.

Now familiar to the Dutch population, Astor Piazzolla’s composition: Adiós Nonino. Meaning: Goodbye, grandpa. This instrumental composition, written by Astor during the darkest period of his life, reminds me to give my own meaning to it.

Even if it is just your shadow that I could see passing by one more time, I would at least still have the chance to say: “Adiós Nonino, I love you.”