GriefSPEAK: Addicted to nostalgia – Mari Nardolillo Dias

by Mari Nardolillo Dias, EdD

Colleen, an attractive 60-something year old woman came in for her first session this week. As she simultaneously shrugged off her coat, sat down, and balancing a  large iced coffee, she released a lengthy sigh. “I’m so thankful and relieved to have found you! It has been a long journey to find a therapist with wrinkles!” 

My initial reaction was wrapped in self-consciousness and whole-body freeze, hoping I might have the ability to temporarily erase some of the wrinkles while contemplating Botox. I was a bit shocked. Yet, her subsequent explanation belied the wrinkles – she wanted a therapist who “had lived”, “who had experienced the world.”

This same client, while reflecting on the role of religion/spirituality, murmured, sotto voce: “My home is my prayer.” When the session concluded I found myself rolling the statement over and over on my tongue. “My home is my prayer”, along with the true significance of the wrinkles. Thus began a pilgrimage to the homes of my past, beginning with my birth home on Sterling Avenue to a humble second floor apartment on Dyer Ave, smack in the middle of Silver Lake with a bakery next door.

As both the family and the suburbs grew, we moved to Cranston, a tiny ranch that could barely contain a family of six. Our final landing was also in Cranston, same neighborhood, one street over from the tiny ranch. Bigger and better. Each of us stayed there until college/marriage or a quest for independence.  With the last leg of my pilgrimage looming, I veered off to conduct a drive-by of the homes of friends and relatives where I spent a great deal of time.

The first was the funeral home, gazing up and into the upstairs window that used to be Nanny and Papa’s “den”. I could almost see the halo from the lamp that surrounded Nanny’s head as she sat in her lime green leather chair. I stopped at Union Ave, where a small ranch remains tucked in, very close between to other homes, like the youngest child. Another symbolic prayer. Mama Paula, as diminutive as the kitchen, standing over the stove, the old sofa in the family room where foot rubs, deep conversations and music abounded. Other people, other places, other times. North Providence and Magic Chef where everything is “off Mineral Spring”. Narragansett – my summer prayer for years. And Block Island. A temporary home, a yearly rental that reminds me of the sound of a lute and a saxophone. Quiet and loud.

As you might expect, each slow drive-by came with a tow truck of emotions and memories until I was overly satiated with a hippocampus full like a belly after Thanksgiving. The combination of these homes are equivalent to the rosary of my life.

Nostalgia can be an addiction. Not necessarily living in the past but an homage to the memories, traditions, love and friendship. The recognition and respect for “the good old days” …  In times like these, today i prefer to be addicted to nostalgia.

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Dr. Mari Nardolillo Dias is a nationally board-certified counselor, holds a Fellow in Thanatology and is certified in both grief counseling and complicated grief. Dias is a Certified death doula, and has a Certificate in Psychological Autopsy.

She is an Adjunct Professor of Counseling and Psychology at both Johnson & Wales University and Community College of Rhode Island. Dias is the director of GracePointe Grief Center, in North Kingstown, RI.  For more information, go to:  http://gracepointegrief.com/