When I was a little girl in Romania, I wanted to play piano so badly. I would constantly ask my mum: “Mama, mama pot te rog sa iau lectii de pian?”
“Mum, could I take piano classes, please, please, please???”

And my mum would say swiftly, “Oh sweetheart, we cannot afford it.”
Also when I was a little girl and people asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”,  I would respond, “I want to be a writer!!!” And I believed it!

But my mum would say, “She likes stories, but this will change. She will be an engineer.”

Forty years later, on a Sunday morning, March 15, I sat in my house with my two kids and husband. I had a great family and a great job. I kept busy every day with all the things that needed to be done for family and for work. I said “yes” to everything and made sure that everyone’s needs were met. I moved to the beautiful land of Switzerland. My life was like a picture perfect postcard. It seemed great. But there was a part of me that longed for something.

There was a whisper and a rumble inside me for more. I just wasn’t certain what the whisper was saying, yet.

That morning, I was listening to the happy gigglings of my 11-year-old twins, Léa and Horia. Sorin, my husband, was playing with them, and my heart swelled. I went to join them when the phone rang. It was my brother. “Hello Geo, I don’t know how to say what I have to say. Please sit. Mum passed away this morning. Because we are in quarantine, I don’t think you can come. I am so sorry.”

It felt like the air froze around me. I broke into tears and fell to my knees, crying. I heard words, but I didn’t understand them. Though my family embraced me, I felt alone and empty. I walked to my bedroom robotically. I lowered the blinds to be alone in the dark. I moved around the room in search of something. Something was leading me. I found it. It was a picture of my mum and a diary. I lit a candle, placed the picture aside and began to read. My mum was such a talented writer. I vividly re-lived her stories; I sensed her humour; I saw her laughing with her best friend; I saw her pensive mood as she wrote her words. I felt warmth and light inside. But as I read deeper into the diary, I came upon other fragments of her story—her dreams that went unlived.

“Daca as fi avut curaj as facut scoala de soferi . . . daca nu imi era frica sa calatoresc singura m-as fi intalnit cu Geo in Paris . . .”

Dreams to drive a car one day . . . dreams to go to Paris . . .

My mum had regrets for not having said what she wanted to say . . . for not doing what she wanted to do . . . for forgetting to live . . . 

“Oh Mum,” I thought, “I didn’t know you felt this way.” My body felt cold and full of sorrow. I start to think of my own life.

Am I really living?
If my life is so great, why am I anxious about my future?
Why am I so busy, busy, busy?
What happened to my dreams?
Where did that little whisper go—the whisper of the dreams, of the piano, of all the things I loved?
I took a deep breath, surrendered and recognized that I was getting caught in all the doing. Doing my job. Doing all the things that needed to be done for the family. I realized I had stopped dreaming. Instead, I had focused on all the doing, and I’d stopped really living.

I leaned into the despair that I was feeling. I searched for the meaning. Everything happens for a reason. Perhaps this is a gift. A last gift from my mum.
I didn’t know what to do, but I knew that I was not going to be the woman whose dreams died in her diary. I made a decision.

I would live my dreams. I would do the things that I love to do!

That was a year and a half ago. Oh Mum, if you could only see me now going after my dreams!

Today, I have a beautiful new black piano in the house. I play every day. I am writing a book—a memoir, From the Head to the Heart, to share how I started dreaming again and connecting to my feelings. I want my children to know how to do it too. I am writing just like I dreamed!

Sometimes . . . I even dare to say “NO!” *gasp*

Thank you, Mum . . . you made me realize that dreams are meant to be lived. They are not meant to die in a diary.

GG