Healing
(picture found here)
In yoga class last night, we were supposed to think of an intention for ourselves, and for those we love, and mindfully practice our poses with this intention in mind. The idea is that if you keep your intention present in your mind, you internalize it, and you project it into the world. The first word that came to my mind was ‘healing’. Thinking back over this year, there are so many friends and family who need to heal. Some physically, some emotionally, but all have suffered and are working back towards normal. Then I wondered, what is normal now? What is normal with my mom gone? My friend Brian, whose father died a few years ago, told me that of course the pain never completely goes away, but what does happen after a great loss, is that your reality shifts a bit, and you become the person who has gone through this difficult time. So now, I am still the J I have always been, but also not. I’m also the J whose mother died, and who misses her horribly. I am the person who still, after almost 6 months, can be brought to tears so desperately easily. (I know that’s not the right grammar, but it’s right for how I feel.) And like a person who has had knee surgery or something, there is always that slight pain, that reminder, that you are no longer the person you once were.
So what does healing mean? When will I be able to consider myself ‘healed’? When will my friends and family be fully healed from their losses, be they physical or emotional, or both? For some, they are healed already. For others of us, I suspect that loss will always be with us, will always hurt, though yes, we will adjust and become someone who has survived this loss, this pain, and come through the other side, shifted and changed, but somehow OK.
12 Comments
Autumn's Mom
Healing is a good thing to focus on. I think we spend a better part of life healing from something. It’s something universal we can all share in. I hope you find comfort in that. I do.
amuirin
There’s a poem that was passed on to me earlier this year, by Michael Ryan. ‘Poem at Thirty’. It came to my mind while I was reading your post. I don’t know that it offers any help or insight, but the last stanza there, he expresses things that you also are expressing.
‘This day, then, ends in rain
but almost everyone will live through it.
Tomorrow’s thousands losing their loved ones
have not yet stepped into never being the same again.
Maybe the sun’s first light will hit me
in those moments, but I’d gladly wake to feel it:
the dramatic opening of a day,
clean blood pumping from the heart.’
John Smulo
I’m sorry you are still going through so much pain. I haven’t experienced the death of a parent yet, and never want to. I remember for several years after my Grandpa died I would go to call him and then shake my head to snap myself out of it–whatever “it” is. It’s been about 10 years and I still feel ripped off that he isn’t in my life.
I believe that when this life ends, a richer life begins. Though when you miss a loved one who has past on, its hard to wait to see them again.
J
Wow amuirin, that sounds so much like what I’m talking about. Thank you for sharing that.
AM, I do feel comfort in the universality of it, but at the same time, I wish we didn’t all have so much to heal from.
John, if another richer life does indeed begin after this one, that is a comfort, but yeah, we’re not there yet, so hanging around in a life that is less rich by definition means that we suffer. Sigh.
Starshine
Dear J,
I got your sweet Christmas card yesterday. Thank you. I, too, am glad that we have been able to be there for each other through this season of loss that we have both experienced.
My hubby says that while life never returns to the normal that you once knew, you begin to find a “new normal” for the new chapter of life after you lose someone special. That helps me because life will never be the same as when my Dad was alive, so it is unrealistic for me to attempt to find what normal used to feel like. Instead, my more realistic goal is to grieve and be in a healing process that will eventually settle into the “new normal”.
I hope that helps, and if it doesn’t, let me send you a big virtual *HUG*. I find that hugs often are more healing for me than all the words in the world.
Love to you!
Ted
I think Brian is right (or at least it accurately reflects my experience with loss). Things do return to a kind of steady state (if you can call that “normal”) and there are times when you are reminded very powerfully what you’ve lost, but even though it’s a cliche, time does indeed do a lot of healing.
patois
I truly hope the healing for you and your loved ones continues to blossom.
Shelliza
Ah, healing. That’s what I need to do.
Thanks for our Christmas card. It was such a pleasant surprise:) Thanks for thinking of us.
Jimmy
Hey J,
Been catching up on the blogosphere. Have to make myself stay away from time to time.
Really liked the “Speedfit Mobil Treadmill™” clip. I need something to motivate me to run again. Are you guys really gonna get one?
I’ve been spending alot of time with my Dad at my Aunt Gretchen’s. She’s my Dad’s little sister and shes dying of cancer.
Luckily for her…all the love she has given in her lifetime is coming back to her ten fold.
She has chosen not to go back to the hospital and spend her last days at home in her bed.
She has 5 children and over 15 grandchildren, and the family has been by her bedside for quite some time.
My uncle…..her husband passed away in March of this year, and I think Aunt Gretchen is ready to go be with him.
She hasn’t eaten or drank in 4 days. Hospice is visiting the home regularly, and my cousin (one of her 4 daughters) is a registered nurse……so she is well taken care of.
I wish I had 1% of your communication skills to express how I feel in this situation, but I tend to clam up?
I don’t know how to tell you how much your experience with your mom and the way you poured your heart out to us (your readers) has helped me cope with the loss of a loved one.
All I can think……is…..my Dad, or Mom….is next.
It’s strange how we spend the first half of our life learning how to live our own lives, and the last half learning how to live with the death of our loved ones …….to eventually learning how to die with some sense of dignity ourselves.
Yeah…I guess I could use a little healing right now!
My Dad’s new dog “Tot” belonged to My Uncle Louis & Aunt Gretchen. She was used to being an only dog with an older couple, and when my cousin’s family moved in with their dogs and cat, it was just too much for poor Tot to take.
Aunt Gretchen asked Dad to take her, and I really think she has been a blessing for dad.
They let Tot get up on the bed when uncle Louis passed away. I guess to let Tot know he was gone? Maybe hoping somehow Tot would understand?
Some of my cousins have asked why we don’t bring Tot up these last few days, and some have expressed it would wreck havock with the other dogs and especially the cat.
Dad’s already left to go up there this morning. I’m torn….I would like to bring Tot. I’ve been helping Dad look after her lately and I just know she can smell all the familiar smells of home when we come back from aunt Gretchen’s.
She could stay in my minivan for most of the time there? She loves to ride and she loves to stay in the passenger side floorboard of any vehicle. I’m thinking seriously about taking her with me when I leave for Aunt Gretchen’s this evening.
Aggghhh…I’ve rambled enough. Thanks for having such a great place for me to come visit and vent from time to time.
J
Wow Jimmy, what a wonderful comment to leave. Thanks for coming by, I’ve been worried about you.
No, we’re not getting one of those funky treadmills. I can’t imagine anything that would zap me of my motivation to exercise more than that thing!
I’m so sorry to hear about your Aunt Gretchen. Maybe if you see her tonight, tell her you love her. And if you can’t, don’t worry, she knows already. For all of my regrets with my mom, at least I know that she loved me, and she knew that I loved her. That helps.
I’ll be interested to know whether you bring Tot or not. Could be a blessing to have her there, could be a pain in the neck. Awe heck, if it would cheer up Gretchen in her last hours, bring the dog, and damn the consequences!
I really liked what you said:
Pretty profound stuff for the comments section, huh?
My thoughts are with you, buddy. Thanks for checking in. 🙂
OmbudsBen
What a thoughtful post, J. Very “present” in the moment. That to me captures some of the essence — as life is a journey, at each step we are often unique in some infinitesimal way, so “normal” too becomes a moving target or goal, as well.
Like John Smulo, when I lost my grandmother there was a parallel loss — she was the person I most wanted to talk to about it, and she was gone. That was 25 years ago. “Normal” is now to have her gone, physically, but to still have her loving smile here with me, as long as I am here to remember it.
And on, and on, footprints in the sand.
Yet we can still read an ancient fragment of poetry left in Greek or Sanskrit, and feel the freshness of a wound.
lalunas
Humans are resilient. Maybe it is in our genetic makeup to naturally try and heal, physically and mentally.