We all know and love Elizabeth Gilbert—who didn’t devour Eat, Pray, Love hours after Oprah told us to? The 2006 hit memoir turned Gilbert into the big sister whose footsteps in which we could all hope to follow. In her beloved memoir, Gilbert meets and falls in love with her husband, José Nunes, after transformative travels to Italy, India and Bali.
But, in 2016, Gilbert divorced Nunes to once again follow her heart and be with longtime friend Rayya Elias, who passed away at age 57 this January from pancreatic and liver cancer. Elias was diagnosed the same year that she and Gilbert announced their relationship to the public, and theylater held a private commitment ceremony in June 2017.
In January, Gilbert shared a devastatingly beautiful tribute to Elias on Instagram after her death, and she shares even more beautiful words about the grief process in a recent podcast as part of the debut episode of The Ted Interview.
“The conversation of grief then is one of prayer and response,” shares Gilbert with The Ted Interview host Chris Anderson. “Grief says to me, you will never love anyone the way you loved Rayya. I reply, I am willing for that to be true. Grief says, she’s gone, and she’s never coming back. I reply, I am willing for that to be true. Grief says, you’ll never hear that laugh again. I say, I am willing. Grief says, you will never smell her skin again. I get down on the floors on my [knees] and, through my sheets of tears, I say, I am willing. This is the job of the living, to be willing to bow down before everything that is bigger than you. Nearly everything in this world is bigger than you. 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.”
