by Isabella Medalle | Featured in Issue 02 - A Council of Stars
The bands of time hold Grace, and in time, Grace holds me.
I look out at the ocean and see fragments of tiny rocks washing up along the shoreline.
Coarse, brown grains far removed from the fine, white sand I grew up with.
It’s a contrast that shows up everywhere.
To so many, the beaches of my home country represent the pinnacle of beauty and warmth.
But beneath its dark waters, the sea holds my pain.
I look down at the gold bracelet in my hand, small enough for a baby.
It has a heart-shaped hole in it and is engraved with my nickname, Isa.
A bracelet lost for twenty years, I think lovingly of its gift giver and the tides start shifting and forming into a spiral.
The veil of the world suddenly becomes thinner and Future, Present, Past; start flowing together in the space we call time.
I walk absently from one cousin to another. The lack of understanding from a small toddler, just over the threshold of being an infant.
My small hands pat each person gently on the arm, giving comfort and condolences before I knew what the words meant.
I wander over to my childhood bedroom and hear the distinct sound of my Mum and Lola wailing in agony: a haunting sound etching its way into my mind, body and soul and into the very walls that surrounded me.
Grace was her name, but she was my Tita Lace.
Taken by the ocean waves, the effects of her loss felt like a riptide, hearts held captive by the forces of insurmountable grief.
The unlocking of an intergenerational fear of the ocean, of scuba diving, of water.
A family afraid of the very substance that nourishes and gives life. So quickly it took it away.
A bright star illuminating the ocean replaced by darkness below.
In her life and in her passing, her spirit imprinted onto my very essence.
Throughout my life, I felt I was living for us both, always carrying her with me in my sense of adventure. Propelling me forward and ushering me towards new horizons, new oceans, new continents.
She never had a child, but I was her baby. Our shared bond so tightly woven, I felt it was impossible to break.
But when I turned the age she was when she died, our connection became marred by paranoia and superstition.
I became stagnant and afraid, a soul hidden from the universe, lest history repeat itself.
I wanted so much to live for us both that I forgot how.
I slowly faded away, becoming a shadow of who I once was.
Clinging onto life like a wilting flower held onto too tightly, I walked through life in a stupor.
When my age ticked over to a new year, I let go of the anxious breath I had been holding in for so long and the fog started to dissipate.
The knots in my stomach unfurled and I looked around at the mess that had been created and I started to pick myself back up from the void.
I could hear her voice again, a comforting embrace in the times I thought of giving in or giving up. A voice gently guiding me towards unknown paths and futures.
I realized that in the time I had lost feeling unmoored amidst the crashing waves and sharp rocks, a new hope for life had been unlocked.
Life’s lessons infused into my bones, softening me, removing the jagged edges to reveal my true heart and the opening of my soul.
I couldn’t fathom how much my Tita Lace could love me until I became a tita myself.
History did repeat itself, but not in the way that I was so afraid of.
Healing myself was to follow the path of creativity and joy, rediscovering the brightest parts of me and sharing the light with those around me.
Living each day unafraid of who I am, I get to see how this affects the lives of a whole new generation in my family.
Encouraging their growth and spreading their wings to see the world of opportunity and abundance. To show them how to be themselves and embrace their own unique paths and ushering in the same sense of love and adventure I felt from my own tita.
Staring out at the waves, her voice echoes through different planes of existence, containing memory, containing future and the ever-present now.
I close my eyes and feel the warmth on my skin as the water hits the shore.
In the moments we are on the beach together, she takes my hand and time, space and physical form are no more.
A feeling of utter love in my heart, a profound heaviness infused with inexplicable strength and love.
My saving Grace.
Isabella Medalle is a Filipino-Australian-Canadian Autistic and ADHD Artist and Writer who weaves her personal family history, movement of cultures and the spiritual into her literary work and visual art. Her visual art has been exhibited at VS Creative Lab, Outsider Arts Festival and Slice of Life Gallery and her writing can be found in Ginger and Smoke Vol. 1 and on her website www.isabellamedalle.com
