Even in death, your teeth are perfect. I stand by your open grave almost six years after you left me. The gravedigger stands before me, waiting. I accuse him of intentionally removing your bones without waiting for me to be here, because all I see is soil in the pit.
Eftyhios responds, “No, it’s here, look.”
In Greek, Eftyhios means joy, happiness. The gravedigger has been working in this Athens cemetery for over 20 years, familiar with decomposed bones. I hand him the bottle of red wine, chlorine, laundry detergent, and the white sheet that I was asked to buy. I cried in the supermarket with such a shopping list. The last one for you.
I look into the grave like a weary archaeologist, almost unaware of what I have in front of my eyes: bones sunk in the earth, pieces of lace torn from the inside of the coffin lid, long bones where your arms used to be, those arms that once embraced me. Then I see more: a mandible, ribs, thigh bones. Your strong thighs used to embrace me so well.
From that mandible, words, kisses, and farewells sprang forth at airports and docks, comforting murmurs while we slept. For 30 years, I listened to you speak, but now I am unable to remember your voice as I stand paralyzed by your grave.
When we bury our loved ones in Greece, tradition requires exhuming the bones after three years due to lack of space; it is rare to get an extension of two or three years. I used every excuse possible to delay it. I told the authorities that there were relatives who couldn’t travel from New York to accompany me on my first experience of this disturbing occasion, and that my elderly parents couldn’t stay alone in Andros and needed me to take care of them. It was all true. And it worked for a while. I paid high fees to keep you where you were.
But the pandemic created an urgent need for graves. The cemetery was running out of space. And I could no longer postpone freeing up that space for someone else.
I received a threatening call from a municipal official who said, “If you don’t come to Athens to take care of your husband’s bones, we will open the grave without you and put the bones in a box.”
Stuck on the island of Andros with my parents during lockdown, I said, “I’m a journalist. If you touch a single pebble of his grave, I will write about you.”
Shortly after, a kind soul from the municipality called and apologized. They told me not to worry about exhuming your bones yet. When travel restrictions changed, we would talk again.
I thanked them and cried.
In Andros, I forced myself to walk, to discover villages, paths I had never explored. I even challenged myself to become a winter swimmer. Every empty beach had its own beauty and silence, and the shores waited for me to immerse myself in their waters.
I spoke to you many times out loud while swimming or sitting alone, trembling from the cold, punishing my body because I was still alive. Nothing could take away the pain of loss, not even the icy waters that burned my skin.
In my unpublished novel, I wrote a scene about the savano, the white cloth we wrap our dead in after washing their bones and dousing them in wine. When I wrote the scene in the novel, I imagined a scene from a biblical movie that aired during Easter, when Mary Magdalene went to the tomb to anoint the corpse. Little did I imagine that I would star in a similar ritual in my own life.
Eftyhios opens your savano and places it next to your open grave. He asks me, “Do you want to see his skull?”
“Of course,” I say, as if someone had asked me if I wanted a glass of water.
Eftyhios jumps into the pit over what would have been your chest and crouches down to lift your skull, a dirty ceremonial bowl raised towards me. Bones mixed with dirt cover the back, which is smooth and intact, unlike the broken front, evidence of how violent your fall down the stairs of our house that night was while I was sleeping.
I stare at it and imagine someone serving me a bowl of boiled wild greens, covered in glistening olive oil and lemon. I nod, unable to comprehend that I am looking at you.
Pieces of you surface. Eftyhios removes the kneecaps, arm bones, thigh bones, and ribcage. There is little left of you, but it is all inside me, and most of you is on the white sheet.
He tells me that the eye socket, jaw, and chin, which were broken in the fall, will be carefully collected, washed, disinfected, and prepared to be placed in the metal box I bought at the cemetery office so I can take you to your final resting place. I can’t see the coffin lid or any part of the shiny wooden coffin. Everything has disintegrated, just like my future.
As Eftyhios carefully unearths each remaining bone, I ask if I can speak to him privately, so I step away from my quiet brother-in-law, godson, and sister-in-law who watch the process, perhaps as stunned as I am.
I whisper to this big, muscular, tattooed man, “I’m going back to Andros tonight, and if I can’t have everything right now, I need to take some part of him with me.”
“I’ll take care of it,” he says, taking my little red bag from my hands. He goes to the grave and returns with something inside. “I put a small bone here for you,” he says. “The finger is the strongest bone. Make sure to soak it in wine and let it dry.”
I thank him tearfully. Macabre? Perhaps, but I need something of you with me, and this will have to suffice.
The person from the municipality assured me that I could take the box today. I planned to take the overnight ferry back to Andros with you by my side. But it seems the information was incorrect. I have to wait a few weeks for the health department to give their approval before I can take your bones anywhere. The journey back to my safe space will have to be done alone, without all of your bones.
On the ferry to Andros, I don’t reserve any seats for you because you’re hidden in my bag, keeping me company. We watch the moon rise over the mountains of Attica as we depart from the port and see the golden path reflected in the sea, extending to support us on this final journey.
When we disembark on the island, I embark on the long journey back home and catch a glimpse of the whitewashed steps leading to the village church where we celebrated our simple, traditional wedding 30 years ago. We celebrated our union in the same church where my grandmother Amalia got married and where my mother was baptized. I miss you so much. The pain doesn’t fade; it stays by my side as I drive, as I create my art, even as I laugh. Yes, I laugh again, just so you know.
As I turn the final curve of the road leading to the village of Apikia, I see the elegant Tourlitis lighthouse in the sea and count the moments between the flashes of light. Any sailor can determine their location from those beams.
That lighthouse is now my guide. I turn to it when I’m downtrodden or even hopeful in winter and autumn, in summer when the house is filled with friends and family. I can’t have you in this life, in this home you built for us. I can’t have your bones either, but I have you in our son, in my memories of us as a loving couple.
When I finally arrive home, the first thing I do is open a good bottle of red wine, one that you and I would enjoy. I pour myself a glass and pour a little on your finger bone in your wine glass. I let the wine soak into your bone. And I raise my glass.
I toast to you, my Rouli. To the luck I had to love you, to live with you. You were so unique, so kind, so calm in the rough flow of life. I
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