Testimonial written by Mora Martin*
Photographs: Courtesy of the author
If you’ve missed “My Journey Through Grief #3”, read it here.
#4: New Beginnings
Magical things began to happen after I first mourned my father’s suicide, 30 years after it happened. It’s been quite a journey since then—a whole new world has opened up, along with a new voracious hunger to experience everything and a renewed appetite for life. During the darkest times, every time I shared with someone what I was going through, I’d say something like, “The old t-shirt I used to wear and love doesn’t fit me anymore. I need to change.” I realized I’d been living in a box, sheltered from everyone and everything, but that box had begun to suffocate me. The armour had grown too heavy, keeping me from experiencing my gifts, my potential, or my ability to fully connect with others.
I changed the colour of my hair because I needed to see that my outer version was also undergoing a big change.
Contrary to what is made out in the new age of washed-out concepts and discarded emotions, facing trauma and deciding to grieve is not an easy task. The journey is neither smooth nor peaceful, and it is packed with doubts and contradictions.
But—and this is an important but—it has been the most profound transformation of my life. I now have a deeper sense of connection, and my relationships had never been so honest.
In mourning my father’s death 32 years later, I have come to a new appreciation and gratitude for nothing less than this precious, complex life.
*
Bonus Track: A Memory
[A postcard, the photo in Greece and your passport.]
On one side, a worn photograph of Plaza de Mayo, the same one I cross every day on my way to Alsina 465. On the other, some scribbles and your words of farewell.
I wonder if you have walked along the same paving stones, also reflecting on who you wanted to be. Or if you bought this postcard in a kiosk that no longer exists today.
Where do the steps go, the gestures we once made?
The photo is in black and white, but it could well be in colour. Your hair is around your shoulders, as in almost all the photos I have of your great adventure around the world. The scene is in a sloping field and in the background you can see a low wire fence and the high grass hanging to the left, also imitating your fringe. It was windy.
You’re in leather and wearing an oxford jean (what a hippie cliché!) and your cool expression conveys that maybe that was one of the good days.
You’re crouched down, hugging a donkey that’s looking the other way.
Behind the photo, in italics, it reads ‘With my friend in Greece, 1978’.
I found it rummaging through your things one rainy afternoon in January. I liked looking at your photos and the objects that had been left loose in that box: a wallet with inscriptions in Hindi, a leather you were carving a pattern on, and a belt with a buckle that I wore all my adolescence and lost in one of the four thousand moves that came later. But this looked like a little brown notebook, one of those half-glossy, hardback, gold-lettered ones that used to be wedding books. When I opened it, a 4×4 photo of you with long hair and a hipster moustache. Your middle name is Angel and that never ceases to amaze me.
On the following pages, your address in San Telmo and a cascade of stamps from known and unknown lands: tiny fingerprints of places that bore witness to your madness.
*Mora Martin was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. At the age of 4, she learned to read and write with her grandmother while on vacation in Mar del Plata. From that moment, she realized that the written and spoken word was the gateway to creating her own infinite world of imagination, creativity, and self-growth. As a child, she voraciously read everything she could find and explored poetry and prose, bringing fantastic (and not so fantastic) characters to life. She attended several creative writing courses and non-fiction workshops. She lives in Buenos Aires, where she works in philanthropy and artistic production for cultural events.
