Artist Statement
In reflecting on my understanding of community, there were many moments I could have chosen to write about. Yet the memory of my grandmother’s death remains the one most deeply etched in me. When I began considering what community truly meant in my own life, I found myself returning to that room. In her illness and eventual passing, she drew together an extraordinary constellation of people: family, friends, neighbors, whose lives she had quietly shaped. Her life created ripples far beyond what any one person could see. In witnessing that gathering, I came to understand community not merely as shared space, but as shared belonging. Just as a body is composed of many parts, we came together, distinct yet unified, to hold one life in its final moments.
Recommended Citation
Namen, Eliana
(2026)
"In That Space, We Were Communis,"
be Still: Vol. 11, Article 4.
Available at:
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/bestill/vol11/iss1/4
About the Artist
Eliana Namen is a second year medical student at Nova Southeastern University Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine. She is drawn to the ways language, community, and shared presence shape the practice of medicine, and she is particularly interested in compassionate care at the bedside.