In January of 2018, Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, lost her partner, Rayya Elias, to cancer. She was only 57.
Six months after Elias’s death, Gilbert posted on her Instagram a heart-wrenching essay about grief.
Gilbert shared a picture of her and Elias during their commitment ceremony, which was taken one year ago, on June 6, 2017. In front of a small group of friends, Gilbert and Elias “bound [their] hearts together forever.”
Gilbert wrote, “What does ‘forever’ mean when one of the lovers has terminal cancer? That’s simple: It means FOREVER.”
It is a universal truth that when you lose someone you love dearly, others will reach out in hopes that you’re doing well.
Gilbert comments on this beautifully, “People keep asking me how I’m doing, and I’m not always sure how to answer that. It depends on the day. It depends on the minute. Right this moment, I’m OK. Yesterday, not so good. Tomorrow, we’ll see.”
Grief, as she points out, comes and goes on its own. It will show up whenever it wants and do to you what it wants — it doesn’t pay attention to your own personal plans. She explains, “Grief has a lot in common with Love.”
Ultimately, the only way to handle grief is to be willing to accept it. “How do you survive the tsunami of Grief? By being willing to experience it, without resistance.”
Read her entire post below.
Two months after separating from her husband, who she met and wrote about in her memoir Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert shared on Facebook that she found love with her best friend of 15 years, Elias.
Elias was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer in spring of 2016.
Gilbert finishes her post with, “I don’t know where Rayya is now. It’s not mine to know. I only know that I will love her forever. And that I am willing.”
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