Some people enter your life as bosses.
Somehow, somewhere along the way, they become teachers. Then mentors. And if you’re truly fortunate, they become friends who stay part of your story long after the workplace is forgotten.
She was my boss at Still I Rise, where I was working as a contract teacher in 2025. I still remember the warmth with which she welcomed me, the patience with which she trained me, and the grace with which she made me feel that I belonged. She didn’t simply teach me the work. She taught me through the way she led — with kindness, trust, curiosity, and an extraordinary belief in people.
Months later, when she left the organization for a sabbatical to travel the world, our paths took an unexpected turn. India became part of that journey. Although she’d been to India before, this time it was different — a longer, deeper journey. I had the privilege of helping her plan parts of her travels.
Somewhere between conversations, journeys, places, and stories, our relationship changed.
She was no longer just my former boss.
She had become my friend.
She’s an Italian by birth, a global traveler, yet there’s something deeply Indian in her spirit. She’s an educator, a changemaker, and a leader who doesn’t merely speak about social change — she lives it. Recently, she traveled to Bodh Gaya, the place where Prince Siddhartha gained enlightenment to become Buddha, to volunteer, and somehow, that felt so beautifully her. To travel across the world and still find meaning in serving, learning, and connecting with people.
Perhaps that’s why I gave her a title that could belong to no one else:
The Bellissima Buddha.
Bellissima for the beauty she carries — not merely on the outside, but in her spirit; Buddha for the wisdom, compassion, curiosity, and humanity she so beautifully embodies.
Life has a strange way of bringing certain people into our lives at exactly the right moment. We may not realize their importance when we first meet them. We understand it only much later, when we look back and realize that they quietly changed something within us.
She did that for me.
I’ll always be grateful to her — not simply for being my boss, but for becoming my teacher, my mentor, and one of those rare friends whom life gives you once and asks you never to take for granted.
Elena Natale.
