Tag: Losing a loved one

Reaching vs. Retreating

She messaged me to check in. I responded right away, telling her I had been sick with the flu. This was my way of apologizing for my lack of communication recently. At this point I still thought it was my lack of presence that was the problem.  Admittedly, I had been absent from many of my regularly scheduled activities for several weeks. More than that, I hadn’t seen much of my friends or family, either.

I told myself and those who asked that my state of near-isolation could be boiled down to feeling under the weather. That response seemed to get me by until she didn’t respond how I had expected her to. For whatever reason, I had anticipated the generic “feel better soon” message back. Surely at that point, I could continue my isolation in peace. She had other ideas as she saw through my short responses.

My phone rang with another text. “Have you reached out to your fellow Pranic Healers for healing?”

I knew already she had known the answer to this question before asking. The short answer was no but I knew that wasn’t going to suffice. Instead I opted for a weak attempt at humor with, “I hadn’t thought of that…” I hadn’t thought of that. She proceeded to connect me with a fellow Pranic Healer who was glad to offer me relief.

It should be noted that I myself am a level four Pranic Healer. I could write numerous blogs about the rapid healing I have experienced through Pranic Healing and Twin Hearts Meditation but that is not what this is about. I knew that the Healer that this friend put me in touch with would likely connect me with much relief from healings I have experienced over the course of five years. The question was, why hadn’t I asked? I am glad to offer healing to others who are suffering and have done so on many occasions. It was not until my friend asked me why I had not reached out for healing for myself that I realized that I could count on one hand the times I had asked for help.

I went into the healing session with this question at the top of my mind. When my friend had asked me why I hadn’t reached out, the question had hit me in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t feel I had wronged her or the practice of Pranic Healing that I had grown to love so much; I felt I had been shorting myself. The healer she linked me with provided healing, then reached out to see how I was feeling. I thanked her for the session and explained that regrettably, I had not experienced much relief with my symptoms. Sleep still eluded me, my sinuses were still a mess but mostly, I still didn’t want to face the world.

It was then that the Healer hit me with it. She asked the question I did not know I had been waiting to hear. “What exactly is going on?” Such a direct question. Later I found myself trying to remember the last time someone had been so specific when asking about my well-being.  I gave in a little, telling her that I had been sickly, had begun a new semester at college and that my mother was on hospice. She side-stepped the invisible wall I had just put up and probed further.

What followed was an unleashing of a cascade of emotions I had been carrying intractably on my own for months. Suddenly, for an oddly blissful moment in time, I was able to say the unsayable about the realities I am and have been, shouldering. The conversation started with me saying, “these are the things I cannot say,” and ended with me saying just those things. How liberating it was to tell her what it feels like to start a new semester without my only sibling, while caring for my mother who has been on hospice since December. I was overwhelmed by how much lighter these things felt with someone to bare witness to them. Acknowledging these truths had once felt like an indulgence, a betrayal to the strength I have become known for. In this moment, speaking them out loud liberated me.

The weight we carry in our lives threatens to become a part of us that we carry for longer and in more solitude than is necessary.  No matter how heavy or awkward the load we bare is, life and the responsibilities that come with it continue to nag at us like a pack of toddlers that missed both snack and nap time. If you can picture that scene, you can begin to picture what those who are grieving, in the process of losing a loved one, or recovering from trauma endure as they face each day. Do not get caught up in the illusion that they must not need help if they appear to be managing all that they have on their plate. Lot’s of us have a great game face.

I was unable to locate my game face the day my friend reached out to me. Because of this, I had retreated to an isolated state, trying to decide which weight in my life was most important to pick up next. Fortunately for me, both my friend and the healer were willing to reach more than halfway to help me figure out how to rise again, carrying a bit less weight this time. Some days we are the healer. On such days, we should reach out to both the weak and to the strong. Other days, we require healing. On those days, may we be strong enough to reach out for healing.

**To learn more about Pranic Healing go to: http://www.pranichealing4me.com

Infinite Busy Signal

I’ve never been a dates person. I forget important days, such as my mother’s birthday and the date of my father’s passing. I miss appointments more than a grown adult should and writing-related deadlines are the only ones that have ever spoken to me with any authority. More than that, I’ve long had a hard time understanding those who can remember important dates and those who attach emotions to days on the calendar. When it comes to loss, I had a hard time understanding what to me looked like scheduling a day to experience feelings of loss. I’ve lost people who were important to me and the pain didn’t seem to hit me on any day or any time of year. What I do understand is that with loss comes a wisdom and a development of empathy. This is what I found when my time on this earth was cut short with the passing of my brother. He was forty-two.

The days have gone by with a cold swiftness that hasn’t left a lot of time for grieving in the three months since his passing. It should be said that I haven’t wanted to set time aside to feel what it is to be without my only sibling, my favorite person, my biggest inspiration. Certainly, I have cried plenty of tears and even screamed at the universe in anger more than a few times; but that is not the same as looking ahead at a future without him. It’s not the same as letting go.

How do you let go of the person who has stood by your side for all thirty-nine years of your life? The one who has taught you about life, love and what a man should be? That was my brother. The thing about a Big Brother is, even when your parents are tired of your shenanigans and tell you to “get lost,” you’ve still got your big brother to find your way again with. He never let me down on that front or on any other. My brother was the rarest of big brothers, he wanted me around. I never knew that wasn’t the norm until I got older. I never knew just how fortunate I was.

As we enter our first holiday season without him, I have found that the 25th of December hollers at me from the calander; its tone more harsh each day it draws closer. Memories from nearly four decades of holidays spent together play in my head like a movie that I’ll never catch the ending of. For the first time since I said goodbye to him, I have no choice but to look forward and try to picture each Holiday without him here. Now I’m starting to get the significance of dates.  I understand this so deeply, I’ve been writing him a letter in my head for weeks. A holiday letter, if you will:

Dear Big Brother,

The Holiday season is coming again. I know it can be a stressful time for you. I worry about how you worry, and you worry about how I worry, so we’ll call each other several times a day until we get through it, okay? I’m going Christmas shopping on Saturday. I know you’re busy but keep your phone on you okay? One of the things I love best about this time of year is that we can get away with calling each other so often, with holiday prep as our excuse. Really, I know we both miss dad and we need the extra laughs. Thanks for thinking of that, and thanks for taking my calls. By the way, who’s getting mom the gag-gift of ribbon candy this year? It’s become tradition at this point and you never forget it-though you always say it’s from both of us. Mom will unwrap it and we’ll laugh and laugh. She’ll insist that she loves it and the box of gifted ribbon candy will collect dust all year.

Hey, remember that year when we were kids and mom asked for a robe for Christmas? You made it our mission to find the ugliest robe we could, and we succeeded admirably. Remember how we laughed and laughed as we wrapped this huge terrycloth robe, covered in purple hearts? Poor mom wore that hideous thing for years. She claimed to love it as much as the ribbon candy, but the ugly robe never collected any dust.

Remember how I was always the first one awake on Christmas morning? I would wake before daylight, just after mom and dad had finally gone to bed. Mom and dad would always tell me to go back to sleep and wait for my brother to wake up. By the time you were a pre-teen, I had to get creative with waking you, as I was too excited to wait! Remember that year I put my porcelain piggy-bank near your pillow and dropped coins in it until it finally woke you? You weren’t impressed then, but we found the humor in that rude awakening for years to come.

I think we lost count of how many times the family dogs knocked down our Christmas tree but eventually we got smart and started hanging it from the ceiling. In later years we would offer this up as advice for other’s and they’d look at us like we were crazy. But that was Christmas in our house.

Hey Bro, do we have everything we need for our annual Christmas morning crepe breakfast? You have mom’s recipe, right? I’ll be there in the morning and we’ll start cooking. You flip em’ and I’ll fill em’, right? I already picked up the Rum for the rum-nogs, anytime after noon is cool to start on those, right?

Wow Bro, I bet you can’t wait to tell mom how great her “chicken” is for Thanksgiving dinner. I can see the scene now, all of us twenty years younger. She would slave over a Turkey dinner all day and present it to us. We would tell her how great the chicken was, and she would respond through gritted teeth, “It’s not chicken!!” We never could take her anger seriously and she never could stay mad at us. She also never seemed to catch onto the fact that we in fact knew what bird she had prepared. We just enjoyed the reaction. Secretly, I think she did too.

Remember that Christmas Eve we spent in Woolwich? You, Jen and I stayed up all night long while you assembled Lucas’s new toy kitchen. It had approximately one billion individual pieces as I recall, all fused together in plastic rings. It took hours beyond what you expected to complete it. Lots of dads would have gotten frustrated. Some may have even quit and completed it another day. Not you, Big Brother. You joked your way through it, keeping us laughing with you until your son had an assembled kitchen set to wake up to on Christmas morning.

I bought all the ingredients for your favorite pie today. You know, the ones you ask me if I’m making every year because they are your favorite? One blueberry pie and one apple-triple berry. I’d never forget your pie, Big Brother. I love all parts of Thanksgiving Day, but nothing beats seeing you come through the door full of Thanksgiving dinner but craving my homemade pie. I’d never forget to make you that pie, Big Brother.

I could write an almanac of holiday memories with my brother in them. A series on the ways he touched my life on days that didn’t seem significant at the time. Insignificant because he was my big brother and he had been there on days that were important and days that were ordinary for my entire life.

Maybe it’s because holidays themselves tend to stand out in our memories. Maybe it’s because to me, my brother was a real-life savior; a true holiday miracle during what were not always easy times growing up. Maybe it’s because I am convinced that his life here on this earth held true spiritual meaning. I know he played the role of a saint in my life. Maybe it’s just because he’s my brother and I miss him but with Thanksgiving passed and Christmas fast-approaching, I understand the weight that a date on a calendar can hold. It’s not about “scheduling a day to be sad.” Facing the holidays without your loved one is like revisiting every season you’ve ever celebrated while being slapped with the reality that you will never celebrate with them again. To those of you reading who can relate, may you find peace and much love this holiday season. To my Big Brother, here is your soundtrack: https://youtu.be/eciUuLE7ehc