With Heart 2 Write!: LE BISTRO ... ONE WOMAN'S WAY OF PROCESSING LOSS

Le Bistro ... One Woman's Way Of Processing Loss, from A Dot In Time

by Amariyls Gacio Rassler (Marggie)

A week after the fatal heart attack, I forced myself to scan her home to take inventory of the work ahead of me. I stared at the wheel chair, the walker, the lifting recliner. The heavy furniture laden with the memories of my mother's pain. She had suffered much in her last years of life from chronic arthritis. I picked up a salve from the floor and took in the strong scent. I smiled. The smell that kept her Yorkie sneezing and under the bed. That recollection brought the first tears upon my face.

I trudged through all the rooms like a swimmer who knows he has miles to go before reaching shore. Each wall decoration and family photo shouted who she was and what she loved ... my mom, my encourager, my friend.

I ended up sitting at her kitchen table. Bread crumbs still spread over the big apple-shaped mat. Her red and white coffee mug, crowded by medicine bottles stood cleaned and ready for use the way I left it the eve before Mother's Day. The night she passed away. I looked down at the small microwave we had placed on the table and stared at my reflection but I could only see the image coming from my heart, my mom's face.

The crying came in torrents. Forceful waterfalls of pain with groans and moans like thunder.

"Scream if you have to." A friend who'd lost her husband advised this to handle grief. "Close all the windows and shades and let it rip."

So I did. But the pain only left for a while. And right there in her kitchen it returned to box with me. It was winning all the rounds. How to survive this? That unrelenting question grabbed my sorrow like a beggar and then my lips formulated that question as a prayer.

Thoughts arrived at different times during the next few days. The invitations bounced around inside my head. They came when pain whispered of emptiness and gloom. Why don't you do something? Busy your mind in other ways. You love to write. What if you could go anywhere to write? My mind reeled with ideas back and forth. I usually enjoyed writing in coffee houses and bistros.

I spent the next weeks cleaning my mother's home, built for her on our property. I gave away her living room and dining room furniture. The place seemed so hollow.

It was during that time, working with my husband, that I asked him, "Could I use the place here for a while?"

"What for?"

"I think I need to write here. Make it my own. For a season."

"Yes," he said. He knew I had been going through a hard time.

As the days rolled on, grief reappeared with his boxing gloves, again and again. Each time its gloves were a bit more worn and the hands inside them, those I call emptiness and sorrow, packed a weaker punch. The new endeavor of creating a place of my own, a writing place, brought sparks of life back into my soul.

Shortly after, I strolled through one of my haunts, a favorite bookstore. I sipped my espresso and it called out to me. A Writer's Paris, A Guided Journey For The Creative Soul. I bought the book. It spoke of people who went to Paris to write, sometimes in cafes, sometimes in ... a Paris bistro. Paris? Could I create a semblance of a place like that for me to write?

The work began. My husband painted a wall ruby red on our anniversary. My favorite color. And piece by piece I bought the furniture. Black iron benches, park-like, a tiered shelf in the shape of the Eiffel tower, bistro tables and then material to make valances. I chose red and white checkered for the kitchen, to match the tablecloth. Red with silver and black trimmings adorned the living room and dining rooms that reminded me of skirts on can-can dancers. Different shaped statues of chefs were bought to decorate and on a wall by one of the doors the sign, bistro. Focusing on a project I loved, putting my creativity to work, caused a change, the rising of my spirits.

Now Le Bistro is in use. I come into it and find the smiling statue by the door, of a chef carrying grapes. I start espresso, turn on the player to hear the sounds of La Vie En Rose, and open up my computer, enthused to write. Sometimes as I look around I remember the words of my daughter when she saw how I decorated the place. "Oh, Mom, Abuela would be happy to know you're writing here."

Each time I finish writing and it's time to go for the day, my eyes are drawn to a picture I bought for a special reason. It's a painting of a sparrow perched on a wild rose bush, gazing at an empty cage. I find joy as it reminds me that my mother is free of pain and that I'm well on the road to the same.

Note: This Mother's Day will be the second anniversary of my mother going to heaven. In the last year Le Bistro has been used for much writing. We were gifted with the presence of a best selling author, Steven James, thriller-suspense writer and teacher of the writing craft. He came to work on his new novel and used our Bistro for a ten day writing retreat. I'm anxiously waiting to see his soon to be published novel that he worked on so diligently at our Bistro! Yay!

Our little Bistro has also hosted good writing / craft books discussions with writings friends that have blessed me beyond belief. I'm thankful for the healing I have experienced and I'm experiencing through friends of kindred spirits. And now ... off to WRITE!