Paula Brukmüller - Flowers from Greece - The Autobiography of the Journalist Who Turned a Personal Tragedy into an Inspiring World Tour

I was never hungry, so I had lost six pounds. I knew I had to eat and I struggled to feed myself at every meal, even if it meant eating small quantities. Looking back, I feel proud of myself. No one could have done that for me. I was stronger than I realized.

I went to the condo gym almost everyday and I would listen to guided meditations while sunbathing by the pool. One day I realized that if I was pregnant I would not have the privilege of giving myself those days off. By the way, I couldn’t even imagine how everything would have been different.

I had a flight already booked to Bahia. My best friend, Michelle, gave it to me as a gift and she even put me in touch with her sister, who has a Bed and Breakfast in Trancoso. I would stay there in exchange for 3 hours a day worth of work.

A day before boarding I had a restless night. I drank wine before going to bed and I woke up several times, feeling as if an anvil was pressing onto my chest. It was still the pain. That sharp and deep one.

I sat on my bed at dawn and I stared at the light coming through the window. I cried and called for my father’s name. I asked him to come in spirit to help me. I felt completely lost and I just wanted a supernatural voice to tell me what to do. I needed a sign from beyond, because I couldn’t hear anything inside me, amid that hellish noise of fear and guilt.

I fell asleep crying and I forgot to set the alarm to ring. My flight was at 8am and I was about 40 minutes away from the airport. By a miracle of my unconscious, I woke up 2 hours and 30 minutes before my boarding time.

Imeditated for eight minutes on the morning of January 10th. It had been less than three months since I had started that practice and I was already happy with my progress. In the early days, keeping my eyes closed for three minutes was almost torture.

I drank a glass of green juice, ate a banana, and left with the protein shake in my hands. Before I went to the gym, I still had to go to the Journalist Union to sign my contract of resignation with the radio and TV station I worked with for the last four years as an online content publisher. I also had to go to the bank to transfer the money for our new car. It was a busy day.

Felipe had already sold his car and he got my car that morning to go to the real estate to sign the lease of our house. We got a couple interested in having our furnished house, and this time, I would just need to take our clothes and personal items. Moving to Belém do Pará was getting closer and closer and everything was flowing perfectly fine.

After working out, I ate green chicken salad for lunch at the restaurant next to the gym and I walked my way to the fertilization clinic. This was our second attempt and a supernatural optimism dominated my mind that day. I secretly promised myself to give up getting pregnant if it didn’t work this time.

All my pregnancies had stopped developing before 12 weeks. Three of my four miscarriages were retained, forcing me to undergo curettage surgeries. However, this time, I was confident. we had finally found out that my body was making antibodies against Felipe’s DNA and we were able to begin a proper treatment for our case.

Felipe left the real estate agency and he went to the medical clinic to pick me up. I’ve spent the last three hours getting immunoglobulin injected in my veins, but I was feeling full of energy. The last appointment of the day was to deliver my car to the dealership and get our new car. A zero-kilometer SUV with plenty of room for our labrador and all the stuff for the baby that was on the way.

After all the paperwork, as we got into the new car outside before going home. Felipe looked at me with youthful excitement.

- It’s amazing how everything happened at the same day, isn’t it?! he said, smiling and caressing the steering wheel. “We can leave for Belém right now if we want to!”

- Close your eyes – I said pulling his hand and intertwining his fingers with mine, while also closing my eyes – Imagine the two of us arriving in Rio de Janeiro in this car, a year from now. In the back seat, the baby in his car seat and Max with his tongue out. That’s what will happen. We’re going to Belém but only for a year. We’ll have our baby, you’ll pass the test and we’ll go to Praia Vermelha afterwards.

Felipe opened his eyes, kissing my hand and my lips, he unlocked the brake and sped up while the new rubber of the tires made a sharp noise on the dealer’s waxed floor.

Five days later, during our vacation in Rio, I was on the same brown leather seat, crying my eyes out and taking off my wedding ring while Felipe was driving in silence.

While boarding the ferry to cross the Bunharém River, between Porto Seguro and Arraial d’Ajuda, I felt like crying. I could still see myself with a melancholic look on the horizon. Messy hair swaying against the wind and a secret hope for better days.

One of my first whims during the divorce week was to contact the company where I have worked to ask for my job back. My resignation was just over a month ago because we would move to Pará and my manager was delighted with the possibility of my return. He considered me the best editor on the team.

However, before I was forced to resign over another of my husband’s professional transfers, I was no longer happy doing that job. I used to edit stories about tragic accidents and bloody crimes, many of them involving children, and all of this had been causing me a lot of anxiety.

It took me over a week to give a final answer to the company. Before that, my friend Michelle convinced me that I could – and deserved – to take some time for myself.

Despite knowing that such a break was necessary, I arrived at Trancoso feeling guilty about being on vacation while I should be figuring out my future. After all, I was unemployed, divorced, and living temporarily in my mother’s house, from which I had left over 20 years ago.

When I arrived by van in Trancoso, I was greeted by one of the B&B’s partners, a Brazilian from Santa Catarina with a broad almost childlike smile, whose name was Edu. He helped me with my luggage and showed me where I would stay.

My room was simple. A wooden bunk bed, a child seat in place of the bedside table, air conditioning, a stained mirror on the wall, and a dream catcher hanging on the center of the plank window. The floor was made of rough cement with a patterned rug that took up all the space on the side of the bed. A shelf on the wall and a hammock outside completed my space. I used the upstairs bed as a closet and I can still remember the smell of rain during my nightly meditations.

On my first night in Bahia, I had several beers with Edu and I summed up my life story with a mixture of grudge and wry humor. I was not ready to share my wounds. I was still telling my story through a victimized perspective..

I had fun with Edu and his jokes and silly games, we ended up kissing and I regretted it immediately. How could I have kissed the owner of the place where I would work on the first day?

I woke up the next morning full of guilt and terrible judgments about myself. I went to Nativos Beach, where I stretched my beach towel, right where the Trancoso River meets the sea, and, to further increase my embarrassment, Edu followed me.

We dived together and I struggled to demonstrate that last night’s kiss had been nothing but an insignificant mistake.

I told him I’d like to be alone, and after he left, I closed my eyes, feeling the bright sun burning on my shoulders. The wind which was blowing nonstop relieved the heat and I began to cry, hearing the sound of the waves and the sound of birds. I cried again, all the pain still consuming me. I remembered the goodbye, I remembered our desperate weeping on the staircase of our house. Lost on each other’s embrace on the floor, seeing our life together crumbles and knowing we were unable to rebuild our castle. We swore to still love the other, but we knew our marriage was in a terminal stage.