That evening, Dennis was quiet. “Do you want to postpone the wedding?” he asked with tears in his eyes. I was stunned. “Maybe you are right. Maybe this is too much,” he said. “This is supposed to be a happy time. It’s supposed to be the happiest time of our lives.” I could see the pain in his eyes as he spoke. Postponing the wedding was not what I wanted. “No. No!” I cried. “Absolutely not. I’m sorry. I wish we didn’t have to go through this. I wish it wasn’t this hard.” He pulled me close. “Thank God you didn’t say you wanted to postpone the wedding,” he said. “That would have killed me.” It felt unfair. Regular people get to plan their weddings and feel excited about what’s ahead. Why did the happiest moment of my life have to be combined with the saddest?
We finally made it back to Aruba and I tried to make my way to some kind of normalcy. I’d roll out my mat in the mornings to try and find my way back to the practice. Sometimes, moving my body and breathing deeply helped. Sometimes, sitting on my yoga mat made me want to scream. I continued to share my sadness with my followers. Sometimes it was the only thing that could give me any relief. People sent me things. Letters. Little gifts. Paintings. Pieces of jewelry. Gemstones. For Yoga Girl. I wrote on Instagram two or three times every day, but I wasn’t objectively connected to the fact that a million people were reading my thoughts every day. For me, it was just a process and it had become part of my healing. I’d feel a wave of grief coming, and if it got so bad I didn’t know what to do with myself, instead of panicking I would reach for my phone and type while the tears flowed. Reading people’s comments helped me to remember what I already knew: We all feel the same things. Just not always at the same time. We all, at one point in our lives, go through hell and back. We’re all human. I was not alone.
Not everyone was patient with me, however. Some in my social media community had grown tired of my grief. One woman urged me to return to posting inspiring things, the way I had done before tragedy struck, “because if it was you who died in that car crash, and not your best friend, what kind of post would you want to leave as your last?” I’d lost more than a hundred thousand followers in the weeks since Andrea’s death. I was sorry to lose so many virtual friends, but not enough to change my ways. I’m just a regular person; just like anyone else, I told myself. I have good days and bad days and I tried to be real and honest with my ups and downs. My goal is to inspire, but if I’m not real, what’s the point? If I lost some followers along the way, it would have to be okay. It meant the real people stayed. Moving through this kind of pain brought with it an intense urge to be myself—I didn’t have time to fake it for anyone. I didn’t want to pretend. I knew now, life is short. I wasn’t going to waste it bending over backward trying to please people. I realized just how much time I had spent in my life worried about whether people liked me; if I was doing the right thing; if I was good enough. I’d worry about not being thin enough, successful enough, special enough for other people to like me. But what about me? Did I like me? After all, my relationship with myself was the most important one and I could feel it in my bones: every time I tried to please someone else at my own expense, I was betraying myself. I was done posting things to social media because I hoped people would respond well to it or feel inspired by it. I only wanted to share whatever was authentic to my heart, every day. People could take it or leave it.
I saw the same change take place in my relationships; shallow friendships that I’d stayed in out of habit or because of mutual history (“we’ve been friends for so long!”) began to fall away. It wasn’t that those friends had changed. I had. I couldn’t partake in shallow conversation anymore. I only wanted to surround myself with people who were able to sit with the real me—with all of me. Not just my happiness and my gratitude and my joy, but also my sadness and confusion and despair. Real friends know how to love all of you. And I knew in my core that cultivating those relationships meant I had to begin with me. I had to love all of me. Every time I chose myself, every time I let myself be who I was, unapologetically . . . I moved a little bit closer to that place of self-love.
love
12
* * *
BELIEVE
Dennis and I flew to Sweden again in early June to get ready for the wedding later that month. We took Ringo with us and, for the first time, Pepper, too. Pepper had grown into a big dog—a black, Labrador-type giant, and he’d never been on a plane before. Getting married without him was never an option. We stayed at a hotel in downtown Stockholm, with all our suitcases and two dogs, because we wanted our own space, rather than to crowd into my mom’s tiny apartment, or go farther out into the countryside with my dad. As soon as we landed I got a tattoo: the phases of the moon lined up across my forearm. The moon was a part of my connection to Andrea. Her Instagram account was @ahlaluna, her initials followed by the words “the moon” in Spanish, but I used to make fun of her and exclaim “ah, la luna,” throwing my arm across my forehead with flair. It always made her giggle. She was a sister of the moon and took part in big women’s gatherings every year, and she was the one to teach me how as women, our menstrual cycles connect with the moon. The tattoo not only reminded me that just like the moon, life waxes and wanes in cycles—what comes, must go, and come again—but also, every night the moon rises, giving me an opportunity to talk to her.
With the wedding two weeks away, my to-do list was endless: seating charts to make, transportation to be booked and hotel rooms reserved, little gift bags to pack, decorations to buy. Last-minute changes were piling up, too, complicating our already hectic schedule: people who said they wouldn’t be able to make it had suddenly changed their plans, and the castle where the celebration was taking place didn’t have enough space, or staff, or plates and silverware, to accommodate everyone. The clock was ticking and I still didn’t have a wedding dress. Not “the dress.” I had just sort of surrendered to the idea that I’d wear a dress I brought with me. It was pretty enough, but I just wasn’t feeling it. With so much on my mind, at least I didn’t have to think as much about how sad I was, which was a nice reprieve.
The weekend before the wedding was midsummer, a big celebration in Sweden. I took the dogs and my friend Amelie out to my friend’s island in the archipelago for the weekend. Amelie was a new friend. She’d come to my retreat in Costa Rica a few months earlier, when Andrea was there, and we’d stayed in touch. Over the last few weeks, she had made herself indispensable with wedding planning and she’d become a shoulder for me to lean on.
The island celebration was nice, but it felt odd that no one mentioned Andrea. Everyone knew my best friend had died, but enough time had passed that people just didn’t think to ask anymore. Which was strange, because in my world, no time had passed at all. Everyone was drinking and talking about superficial things that, in the big scheme of life, didn’t matter—but they hadn’t just lost someone, so they weren’t thinking that none of it mattered. To me, the conversations and the wine and the laughter all echoed with shallow nothing.
At one point, I sat on the dock alone and cried. Unbeknownst to me, my friend Daniella snapped a photo of me facing away from the crowd, thinking I was sitting on the dock in meditation. In the picture, a giant orb sits beneath my shoulders, right at the back of my heart. Since Andrea died, those little orbs kept showing up in my photos. People said it was just an iPhone thing but I knew better. It was the same light that glittered across the ocean as the sun set. The same light I saw on the windows, walls, and ceiling of the airplane. It was the air I’d forgotten I knew how to breathe. It was Andrea.
When we got back to Stockholm, I decided to get another tattoo. It was a spontaneous one (the moon phases I had long envisioned inked on my arm). Dennis and I were walking down Södermalm. It was sunny and our friends had begun to arrive from other countries. It was just such a good day. The chorus I’d had in the back of my mind for the last three months came to me as we were walking, lyrics from the song “Black as Night.” “I believe in the good things coming, comin
g, coming, coming.” Just as it came into my mind, I looked up and saw a sign for tattoos. “Let’s go in,” I said. Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in the chair. I asked the artist if I could play the song while he inked me. “My friend died,” I said. “This was our song.” The tattoo artist looked at me. “Of course,” he said. “Play it loud, man.” And I did. I wanted to feel her presence. I wanted to believe in the good things coming. I turned up the music as he put the needle to my skin. I left with the words “I believe in the good things coming” wrapped around my left forearm, right below the crease of my elbow.
Suddenly it was two days and counting. Dennis still needed a haircut; I needed a manicure; we were missing hotel rooms for five guests; people were asking for directions; the seating chart needed to be updated yet again to accommodate last-minute attendees; Dennis didn’t have a tie; I didn’t have the right underwear.
On the way to get my nails done, I envisioned myself walking down the aisle in the castle gardens, Dennis waiting for me by the water. I tried to see myself in the dress I had hanging in the closet. It wasn’t quite right, but I decided I would just have to learn to love it. At the same time I was thinking about the dress, my phone rang. The call was from Amelie. “Something amazing just happened!” she yelled excitedly when I picked up. “Ida Sjöstedt is opening her bridal studio for you and is offering you a dress!” “What?” I asked. It couldn’t be true. Ida Sjöstedt is one of the most renowned couture designers in Sweden—her dresses are a literal bohemian dream. But they go for ten thousand dollars easily. “They said to come to the studio and if you find the one you love, you can have it,” Amelie said. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “She follows you on Instagram,” Amelie continued breathlessly. “She’s been reading your story.” It turned out that Amelie had a connection to the designer’s studio. “I felt called to check in, so I did and they had seen a post from you that you were getting married. They said we should come right over. Isn’t that so strange?” I smiled. “Let’s go!” I said.
I moved my nail appointment and met Amelie at the bridal studio. I found “the dress” immediately. Two pieces. A strapless hand-stitched lace top that clung to my waist over a wide and flowy tulle skirt. I felt like a fairy princess in it. It was the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. And it was offered to me as a gift. I took the dress back to the hotel room and gave myself a moment to breathe. There was so much energy buzzing inside me; I didn’t know how to wind down. The dress felt like a miracle. Actually, there had been miracles all around. I should be writing all of this down, I thought to myself. To make sure I won’t forget. I lay on the bed and closed my eyes. I was so tired from the emotional roller coaster of the last few months, but also so happy about what was ahead.
I had begun to nod off when I was startled by the sound of my phone. Olivia, my maid of honor, was calling. “Hey, do you have your something blue yet?” she asked. “If not we’ve got to find something today.” I had something borrowed—a golden crown for my hair. My dress was something new. My ring, something old. It belonged to my grandmother. But I didn’t have something blue. Olivia and I made plans to meet up to find that missing something. I hung up the phone, sat up, and reached for Andrea’s pouch on the way out the door. When I did, something fell out and rolled under the bed. I crawled after it, expecting to see a coin. What I discovered was much more precious. There, underneath the bed, was a small blue-gray bead. It took me a moment to recognize it. It was that tiny bead from Andrea’s necklace, the one she wore on the morning of the crash. The bead I took with me from the log in the garden outside her house, from her torn necklace. The bead from the necklace I pulled out of a bag marked “Medical Waste.” The hairs on my arms stood up. I didn’t know I had it. I thought it was safe on my altar at home in Aruba. Apparently it had been in the pouch, hanging on my hip, all along. My something blue. I called Olivia. “You’re not going to believe this,” I said.
On Friday, we drove to the castle. The pre-wedding festivities were starting. Lejondal Castle is located just north of Stockholm and we found it on a whim. I know it sounds very fairy tale–like, getting married in a castle, but Sweden is a monarchy with a proper king and queen, and castles are all over the country. Most have been converted to spas and hotels or event halls, like the one where we were about to be married. It was nestled right on a lake, surrounded by forest and greenery. The castle gardens are beautiful and we were planning to have the ceremony outside. There would be a white-sand aisle and I’d planned to be barefoot.
I had butterflies in my stomach when we checked in. The place was alive with preparation. Our room overlooked the water. We dropped our bags and went for a walk with the dogs—they were overjoyed to have left the city for the country. Pepper was such a good dog. He never needed to be on a leash, and Ringo never left his side.
That evening we gathered with our guests in the courtyard for a rustic summer barbecue; we drank strawberry-lime caipirinhas out of mason jars and enjoyed a buffet of whole-roasted corn, veggie skewers, portobello mushrooms, and fresh local fish. The venue was decorated beautifully. String lights flickered all around the gardens. Two hundred people had come to celebrate our love. Friends from Aruba, Costa Rica, Holland, the United States, Canada, the UK, Spain, Norway, South Africa, India . . . It was a perfect evening—everything I ever could have imagined. The plan was to wrap up the party early so everyone could get to bed at a decent hour and be ready for the big wedding. We ended up dancing until three in the morning—to this day, the party on the eve before our wedding is the best party we’ve ever been to.
The next morning I woke up early but didn’t feel tired. I walked out on the balcony and looked at the lake. It was still, not a ripple across the surface. I smiled, thinking of the festivities that had continued late into the night—and it was just the beginning! I felt calm.
We finished breakfast just in time for morning yoga. With so many of our friends being yoga instructors, we planned for a yoga session every day. Mats were laid out across the lawn and twenty or so of our guests joined in. I always set an intention at the start of my practice. Usually it’s something related to my body, or to flow, to let something go, to feel strong, to feel calm. On this day, it was very simple. Love. Just love. We flowed and stretched and moved and breathed and when we were done and lying in Savasana, my heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might shoot out of my chest. Dennis reached for my hand. I squeezed it tightly. The love I felt for him . . . I couldn’t find the words for it. It was bigger than anything I’d ever experienced before. Somehow, even with everything we’d been through over the past months, I was overcome with a feeling of purpose. We were here for a reason. This was the right place. The right time. Him and I. Forever. Opening my eyes, I saw the sky above me. Blades of grass tickled my fingers. The earth felt like it was vibrating. I was so, so happy. I realized; it is possible to move through grief, and still feel joy. To hold space for sadness and gratitude at the same time. To miss someone and still be happy for the ones that are near. I was feeling it all.
When Dennis headed off with his groomsmen to get ready, I took my girls to my room. The bridesmaids’ dresses were dusty blue, just what Andrea wanted. All the dresses were on hangers, just steamed. Everyone took their dresses, one by one, and for a moment we stood there, holding our dresses, looking at the rack. One dress was left. Andrea’s dress. I closed my eyes and imagined her walking in at any moment. When I opened them again, everyone was crying. We hugged, and looking at my bridesmaids, I realized I’d been so focused on the one I was missing that I hadn’t paid enough attention to the ones still here. “I love you so much,” I said. “Thank you for being here.” I was grateful for so much. I was hours away from marrying the love of my life. My friends were here, our families, all our loved ones. Yes, I had lost one of my best friends. But I still had so much.
The hour leading up to the ceremony was fraught with typical wedding-day disasters. The minister was on time, but the wedding certificate was missing;
the flower arrangements were not what we ordered; Dennis misplaced his cuff links; the arch was knocked over by the wind; and, finally, it started to rain. I felt my eyes starting to tear up when someone came bearing gifts. Luigi. “Gifts from San José,” he said, hugging me tightly. The box was from Andrea’s family. Inside was a letter signed by everyone in her family, sharing their love for Dennis and me, and a framed photo of Andrea—the one that was on the altar in the house when I first arrived there after her funeral. In it, Andrea has a scarf wrapped over her head and she is looking out into the distance. It’s the most beautiful, serene picture. Also tucked inside the box was a copy of the book she had been reading before she died—meditations in Spanish about how to open your heart through merging with the present moment. Lastly, the most beautiful of gifts: bracelets that Andrea’s cousin made using Andrea’s own thread, the same thread she had wrapped in her hair. Three bracelets were for me and one was for Dennis. I slipped mine on my wrists and sent the one to Dennis in his room. We took the framed photo of Andrea and set up a little altar in the castle where we hung her dress and lit a candle. That way, everyone attending the wedding could take a moment throughout the celebration to sit with her.
In the moments before I walked down the aisle, I posted a photo of the little pale blue bead. Magically, someone had offered to turn it into a necklace just a few days earlier and now it was hanging around my neck. My something blue.
To Love and Let Go Page 15