Healing walk

Sometimes the world stops—
and at the same time, everything keeps turning.

It happened a few days later.
My head felt both empty and full.
I went to the butcher’s — not because I craved meat, but because Mama and I had to eat.
There was a queue. People chatted.
The doorbell chimed every time someone walked in.
The counter gleamed, cold and spotless.
A child pressed its fingers against the glass and looked at me, almost teasing.
I noticed, but didn’t respond.
“What can I get you, madam?”
The woman ahead of me hesitated.
“Half a kilo of fine sausages, please.”
Life, apparently, went on!
Bluntly. Effortlessly.
While mine had come to a full stop. 
I walked home. On foot, like I so often do.
Still recovering.
Somehow I ended up on a path I knew, but hadn’t chosen.

And right there, beneath an old weeping willow, it happened.
My pace slowed until I stood still. He couldn’t have picked a more fitting place — grieving beneath a grieving tree.

My heart quickened, yet I wasn’t afraid.
I felt him.My papa.
He had only just passed, and yet — he was there.
Undeniably. Unseen, but oh, so present.
It wasn’t a memory that drifted past, but an overwhelming presence.
So tangible it brought me back to my pregnancy,
to that quiet knowing that your child is safe — simply because you carry it.
That’s how it felt.
As if he was inside me, a soft reassurance from within. A connection so deep it defied description.

The sharp edges of grief were instantly softened,
replaced by a warmth I’d never felt before —
a warmth that felt like real love.

From that moment on, everything changed.
Not that the grief lessened,
but it shifted.
His physical absence gave way to something gentler.
More constant.
As if I just knew: from now on, he is always here.

And you know what? Without words, he made it clear I could ask him anything.
He would never let me down — and he never has.
From that moment on, I could always rely on him. Not like before, but more than ever.

What began beneath that weeping willow has never left me.
Thirty years have passed,
and there are few days we don’t speak.

It’s strange, really. I was raised Catholic.
Back then, there wasn’t a single doubt in my mind that there was something after this life.
By now, I know better.
He doesn’t need to prove it anymore.

Of course, it’s no longer like it was.
There’s no more coffee and conversation.
And at times, it’s been hard. Very hard.
Like when I got married.
Those are the moments when doubt creeps in again.
When you suddenly feel alone -
because he wasn’t there to walk me down the aisle.

Still, I never got stuck in sadness or longing.
I often visit him, where his photo stands,
where his body received my last farewell.
But really, I don’t even need to go there.
I can reach him anywhere.

That’s when I tell him how everything has changed in our village,
and at the same time how life still revolves around what truly matters: values.
The values he embodied every single day.

I know he smiles when I speak with him, or about him,
gratefully.
And it’s always a joy to feel how he — time and again — finds a way to answer.
In ways both clever and unexpected.

Sometimes his response comes through the mouth of a stranger.
Like Hugo, who suddenly started talking about him —
right at the moment I was thinking of Papa.
Not what he said,
but the fact that he said it —
that’s what moved me.
Especially since I wasn’t even supposed to sit next to Hugo.
And I had no idea he’d ever known Papa.

Moments like that make me smile.
Because I know:
he always finds a way to reach me.

He’s still here.
In another form.
But always when I need him.
There’s no better therapy.

Sometimes I wonder: haven’t I called on him often enough?
Maybe there are others who need him more than I do.

So I make a promise to myself.
I won’t bother him again.
But at the moment of truth –
when I leave this planet –
he may guide me.
To the real altar.

Then I’ll wink and whisper: “Deal"?