For Petaloúda

Today is the last day of September. I’m not sure where the last 30 days have gone, except that they’ve somehow passed in a blur. I’m not entirely ready for October, especially since September was a whirlwind, and I can’t help but reflect on how different last year was.

This time last year, my mother nearly died. Twice.

There’s so much to unpack with those feelings. They’ve been left inside me to rust and rot, corroded by trauma. Maybe one day I’ll be courageous and write about it, lay out all the miserable details of finality, inconceivable pain, and fear greater than I could have ever imagined. Until then, it remains as something glanced over, vaguely referenced when the trauma resurfaces.

It was also this time last year when I celebrated the birthday of my friend Petaloúda. She took her life the year before. It was a strange death; unthinkable, really. She proved immortality a gothic myth, because if it truly existed, she’d still be alive. I don’t mean that she was reckless or thrived in dangerous situations; I mean that nobody had the appetite for life quite as she did. She was life personified—until she wasn’t.   

She died on my birthday. Before then, possibly a week or two beforehand, we discussed her favorite story in my book, Soup. We laughed, deliberating the ironies of life, before making plans to recapture our youth by retracing our steps through Asia, and then co-writing a book about our expedition.

I read the story today, The Privy Chronicles, remembering the sound of her laughter as she complimented my description of the Marilyn Monroe impressionist. It’s sad how the voices of our loved ones fade over time, but today, I heard her as if she were chuckling into my ear. It brought comfort on the eve of October and its thinning veil.

I’ve always had a special bond with Soup. Especially now, when I know that it brought Petaloúda a moment of happiness in what I’ve come to understand as an assault of darkness. It was also the last book my mum read before going blind. Together, Soup ended up becoming an instrumental moment for two women I love.

With the anniversary of Petaloúda’s birthday, my mum’s miracle survival, and Soup’s anniversary all coming up, I’ve been drawn back into the world of my own words. Memories, laid upon pages, capturing a world already happened, when the dead were living and the unseeing were still seeing. A world in which I was vastly different, too.

Perhaps that’s why I’m clinging to the ideology of Soup. Not just because I’m proud of it, but because it’s a chamber of memories sealed into immortality. Whether in print or long abandoned to a book-graveyard, it doesn’t matter: my words will exist in the atmosphere for all eternity.

Despite my friendship with Petaloúda—and the many adventures we shared—I never wrote about her in Soup. The premise of Soup was to collect daily thoughts and encounters, journaling them into personal essays, before printing and binding them into publication.

It was a documentary of life through the pandemic, broadening into musings, and sharing snippets of my life before the world as we knew it… died. During the year of writing Soup, I hadn’t seen Petaloúda, and although we spoke often, we were both distracted by the end of civilization as we knew it. Although she understood my reasons, I know it hurt her to be left out. Something I deeply regret.

For her birthday, I’m going to add a piece to Soup about one of the greatest inspirations that this world has ever known. A light that should never have been extinguished, but which continues to breathe in an entirely different—but memorable—way.

Perhaps this tribute will also bring me closure. The pleasure of remembering her has been taken from me in the manner of how she died. Not only will I honor my friend—the woman who purposely wore mismatched lenses and odd socks—but I’ll hopefully restore some of my broken heart.

It’s strange to think that in a small way, I’ll be resuscitating her. I’ll have to remember that once I’m done, the outcome will remain the same: she’ll only breathe life when words are read aloud, and once stopped, she’ll cease to exist again.

I wish I could add a piece about my mum to Soup, too, but I can’t. Not yet. Maybe there’ll be another book in the future where I’ll fill the pages with love, admiration, and indeed the trauma of almost losing such an incomprehensible love. But that’s a journey for another day, when mettle is a friend.   

This October, I’ll write for Petaloúda. My sweet Libra. For the mismatched socks, the odd lenses, the reckless joy of a woman who, despite her end, taught me never to be afraid to live. Perhaps that is all any of us can hope for: to be remembered in ink, laughter, and love. And that’s enough, isn’t it?