Thursday, October 25, 2012

Good Grief.

Well.  It happened.  I got a surprise visit from grief today....she is a fickle bitch. I started to feel it a little last night in leaving work.  Felt extra weight on my shoulders, I could feel myself holding back tears, and then I realized that today would be one year from our anatomy scan when we found out that Juliette's heart was in danger and through many tests was diagnosed with Turner's Syndrome.  I will never forget sitting in the perinatal specialist office and hearing our genetic counselor say, "this will not be a good ending for you all, her heart is in serious danger.  It will only be a matter of time and you will need to come back every 2-3 days for us to listen for the heartbeat."  And so began our 3 week journey until they couldn't hear her heartbeat any longer.

I got up this morning and made my way to 715 am Yoga at Wanderlust Live.  The first 30 minutes of practice I felt strong, I felt like today wouldn't be so hard.  And then...out of nowhere...tears flooded out of my eyes.  The good news is there happens to be crying in yoga.....(and maybe in baseball because my Cardinals lost the NLCS on Sunday night) My breath became short and I couldn't place myself in one more pose.  My physical practice was done and my emotional/mental practice had to take over. I moved into child's pose oddly enough and let my tears fall.  Everyone once and again I would return to Ashley's (teacher) instruction but would find myself not able to handle any physical movement.  One of the things I love about Wanderlust is they are music first, yoga always.  About 45 minutes into class, Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah starts to play.  Yep, done.  I knew I had to surrender and just try to breathe.   As I sat with my tears I realized that I have come a long way from one year ago.  My natural tendency would be to leave class and escape before anyone saw me.  I wouldn't possibly want my tears to make anyone uncomfortable. That didn't happen today.  I stayed on my mat, I cried through the last 30 minutes of class, Ashley came over to check on me and make sure I was okay and I leaned so freaking hard into the pain that was happening that I was exhausted when the class finished.

I was reminded of something Anne Lamott wrote:
"You will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, 
and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved.  
But this is also the good news.  They live forever in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up.  And you come through.  It's like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly- that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp."

It was Martha Graham who said that dance is the hidden language of the soul.  You may see a limp in my dance over the next month....and hints of it forever, but never doubt...I will keep dancing and face this grief as I remember one year ago.

3 comments:

chelsea said...

This is beautiful, Colleen. You seem to be exactly where you need to be--leaning into the grief rather than running from it. I so appreciate your tender honestly in this post.

Beki said...

I love you Colleen. Thank you for sharing your heart.

Barbara said...

Colleen - It sneaks up on you, doesn't it. I am not sure I'll ever get used to that but allowing yourself to surrender to the grief, to allow the tears to flow, seems to always make it easier. I've tried it too many times to hold it all in and there are serious repercussions to that approach. I am sad that you are having to deal with this terrible grief but happy that you have found a way to approach it. Strong women like ourselves often times forget that we have to be weak at times....I wish I could give you a big hug and cry some with you. I'll be thinking about you and sending positive thoughts your way