Three years after my grandmother Lela died, her bones had to be disinterred according
to the customs of the Greek Orthodox Church. Keeping her in the ground would have
meant paying the church an amount of money none of us could afford and so, after
many a fraught conversation, it was agreed by the family that Lela would be disinterred,
her bones placed in a wooden box and shelved alongside those of countless others.
My family is not religious and our cultural background is diverse. And yet, when
it came to Lela’s bones, the tension was tangible. We all tried to act as
though it didn’t really matter, that she was gone; the Lela we had all known
and loved in our own, different ways, had no connection to these bones, the hard,
dry remnants of the body she had once inhabited. Such was the extent of our denial
that none of us even attended the process, but left Lela’s bones to be
disinterred, wiped clean, and placed in a box with only strangers present.
For years the guilt grew inside me, for years I imagined the process in ever growing
detail, was haunted by images, my mind filled at times with questions that none
could answer. And then, a few months ago, more than ten years after Lela had died,
I realized that my disassociation, my distancing from the whole process, had led
to the ultimate betrayal.
I was on a quiet beach on a Greek island with two friends, two women I have come
to care for deeply. We were lying in the sun, taking in the warmth and kindness
of a Greek summer afternoon, when we saw the severed leg of a goat nearby. What
struck me most at the time was that it still had the tether rope around its hock
and my mind filled with images of how I imagined the animal had died. The rope spoke
of captivity, of a violent death stripped of dignity. Something about the way it
had just been thrown, the disrespect of it all, filled me with a deep sadness. I
got up, walked quietly towards it, took it in my hands and gently removed the rope,
smoothing the hair where the tether had left its cruel mark. I then walked towards
the sea, over rocks, through water, and, saying a few words of prayer, dropped it
into the clear sea. It sank, ever so slowly, to the seabed and came to rest in the
soft, accommodating sand. And then stillness, silence, a kind of peace.
If only I had found the strength and kindness to be that person ten years ago. If
only I had realized that bones are the last tangible thing that remains, the last
remnant we the bereaved are given through which we can express our love, the tenderness
we will forever feel for those no longer with us.
hails from Greece, England, and Egypt. She attended Greek school and has a BA in
English Literature & Politics (University of York) and an MA in Life Writing
(University of East Anglia). Her essays appear in KYSO Flash and Serving
House Journal, and one of her essays was favorably reviewed by TLS: The Times
Literary Supplement. She writes creative nonfiction about people, nature,
and time, how its passage affects perception and the material and notional nature
of things. She is currently writing essays on belonging and displacement and on
women from ancient Greek mythology and drama.
