After my mother passed away, I had the toughest and loneliest period of my life. A year after the Covid pandemic started, I immediately knew that I shouldn’t stay in the big city and that I should visit my family in the countryside. It is the place where my mom was raised and where my grandparents still live, but also my brother, my aunt, sisters and their children. I stayed there for a long time, as I needed time to heal.

My mother affected all of our lives so deeply, and we needed each other to feel well again. I brought Lija with me, a stray dog I adopted, and it felt like she was the missing piece. At the time, there were a lot of missing pieces, and there still are, but the amount of compassion we give each other is the most lovely thing I’ve ever witnessed. Collective sadness is so strong and vulnerable, and it hurts even more, but collective healing was what made my family stronger. And together as a family, we made a film in reminiscence of mother called “Wind, Talk to Me”. In one of the scenes mother is saying “The wind is eternal”. I do not see that eternity only in the wind, but also in her, because she is the wind. The family’s desire to make this film is to never forget Neca, but more than that, it is to not forget the relationship to the world, to nature and to ourselves.