Tag Archives: loss of child

One With the Forest

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House sitting in the land of lakes, rivers and forests-  the midlands of Ireland, I find myself in a magical setting; quickly becoming my favourite place to take my new canine friend for a walk. It is like an enchanted forest that you would read about in a fairy tale. Mushrooms of all sizes, red berries and leaves carpeting the trails winding up and down hills and around moss covered trees with rays of light filtering down through a full canopy of tree tops. Holly trees, hawthorne trees dispersed throughout…absolutely lovely. Babbling brooks appearing out of no where, trickling sound intercepting the hush of the forest. Balancing on a birch branch to cross the stream I fully expected a leprechaun to pop out from behind a tree.

There is an Irish myth that hawthorne trees are the entrance to the fairy world. Traditionally no one cuts the lone hawthorn tree as this is the meeting place of the fairies. It is also believed they bring good luck to the owner and prosperity to the land where it stands. Even today many farmers/land owners  will not cut them down, they will work around it. Roads have even been diverted to avoid cutting one down. I was reading how in 1999 work was interrupted on the main road from Limerick to Galway because a fairy tree stood in its path. The road had to be rerouted and construction was delayed for 10 years.

Spending time in this forest elevated my state of mind. Never anyone else here. I felt very privileged to be here within the workings of this special place. Even the walk here was invigorating with a constant feed of bright green fields. Donkeys, cows, sheep, horses dotted about. My canine friend loved these woods; the freedom off the leash, dashing about, so many smells to check out as we made our way on the trails, at times incredibly steep as we wound down through a mass of gnarled moss covered trees. Safe in the bowels of the forest I began to hear its voice. My heart rose to listen. Feasting my eyes on this wondrous sight around me was so surreal. How is it that I am here? In my life ‘ before ‘ this never would have happened nor could I imagine there was such a place. It lands with a heavy thud in the deepest part of my stomach as to why I am here. This keeps happening. This thud. Like a curve ball; enormous power and velocity behind it. My gut catching it. It knocks your breath away, challenges your balance, your stamina to stay upright. Bile rising upwards. The deep pain of yearning for your child. Ready to surrender to it, feeling beaten, a surge, hard to describe, like a surge of life, rose up through me. A lifting energy. Expansive. Insightful. Revealing the delicate intricacy of the forest. I felt part of every living thing and every living thing was part of me. My vision was enhanced. A single red hawthorne berry appeared so vivid, crystal clear. Blades of grass seemed to pop out. The rest of the forest further away. Sort of like a child’s pop up book. Each individual blade of grass so precise. Each one unique. My senses were sharp. In this heightened state of awareness everything felt like it was supposed to feel, I was supposed to be here, I was in the right place, on the right path. At that moment I felt that everything was ok. I felt peace. The fear of my new life went underground.

A foggy light settled in. Oddly comforting. I felt a connection to this; a familiarity. An overwhelming sense of love and strength swirled in this energy. I felt joy as it filled me. Closing my eyes, relishing the harmony with it all, my mind’s eye saw Jason’s face; very still, angelic, innocent. Trying to reach him, tears gently running down my face, a wind picked up and went over my arms and lightly blew leaves around me. Hardly breathing, I looked around, it appeared that the wind was only swirling around me. I spoke to Jason from deep within my heart and soul. No voice. Remaining calm and still. Then the gentle caressing wind slowly subsided and disappeared. Feeling hope, lighter, changed, trying to ignore the logical chatter from my reasoning brain I slowly navigated my way back up the hill dodging the roots and rocks on this rugged path. An onset of exhaustion with a feeling of pressure in my chest caused me to stop. There was a real pain in my chest wall like someone had pried it apart leaving it jagged and sore, vulnerable with no bandage to protect it. With the cracks exposed, the first light was now able to get in.

This experience was a gift. One of several spiritual experiences I have had while here in Ireland. This land has nourished my soul and supported me while I try to absorb, to endure this horrid pain which is always lying just beneath the surface. My intuition was right to guide me here, out from under the suffocating oppresssion of my home, to give me a space to reinvent my self after losing my identity. A safe space to be with my feelings, to work through them on my own terms rather than the pressure to respond to others’ expectations. With my heart hiding my grief and my smile covering my anguish I am slowly relearning my world.

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Intuition – Voice of the soul

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A restorative yoga pose called child’s pose has become my płace of refuge. Many hours spent here. The body intuitively wants to turn away from the world. Folding down over the knees. Upper body resting on the thighs. Forehead coming to rest on the floor. Eyes closed. Arms down by my side. Sometimes soothing, sometimes not. If the monster is sleeping, my mind quiet and still enough, I hear my own words that I would tell Jason at difficult times. I knew that I should act on them, try to find the energy to get myself together, back to the yoga studio. I had stopped going. I had become so weary from forces at home. Expectations of one another broke the few remaining frayed threads of marriage. Common words to Kelsey “ I’ll be fine love “ were becoming less convincing. The day Kelsey came home to find me curled up on my bedroom floor, unable to get up, unable to pull out of it for her, was a horrible moment for me. I felt weak and defeated. I didn’t want Kelsey to see me this way. I didn’t want her to worry over me. I needed her to concentrate on trying to figure things out for herself, to look after herself, both of the girls, to learn how to live in their changed world..a world without their brother. She lay down on the floor beside me. Holding onto each other looking into Kelsey’s worried face I felt such an immense surge of love and fight for her; for all my children. I knew right there and then that I had to change my circumstance, change my crippling surroundings if not for myself but for them. I could only imagine how difficult it was for them. Everything had changed. Even how they saw me was foreign to them. For the first  time in their lives they saw their Mom on her own. This is not how it is. This is not Mom. Where is J …it is always Mom and J. This was their only view of me. A huge shift in their world.

” A family is like a body. When a family loses a loved one, it is as if they have lost one of their limbs.”

After this experience I began to feel a strange sensation. A presense of something unexplainable. This feeling began to radiate throughout me. Communicating to me from somewhere deep. No conscious thought or reasoning. It was a clear, honest, organic, full-on sensation telling me that I would not physically survive another bleak winter and beyond in these barns and the house. A visual intuition of me slumped in a corner of the barn or my room appeared. I would expire, cease to exist through some sort of natural occurrence. I don’t know how, but I felt it. Not self-inflicted. Just fade away. I had never felt a feeling of certainty like this. It was as if every cell in my body already knew this before I did and was trying to communicate this knowledge to me. A gentle nudge. A whisper.

The repetitive daily tasks of going from the barns to the house was killing me. Trying to keep my gaze looking down so I wouldn’t have to see the lifeless sad window, no face, no wave. Knowing what I have to open the door to. No life. Rooms that held my family are now filled with profound sadness. When in the barn working, I still have the feeling of such urgency, my ears still on full alert listening for Jason until my brain remembers that Jason has died. Dimness. The house makes a sudden sound, a seizure, I am running to it when the weight of the world comes crashing down upon the sudden realization that it can’t be Jason – he has died. I just knew that I could not continue this way, my body would not continue if I didn’t self-care. I did not want my girls to find me expired, slumped in a corner in the barn or my room. This premonition strangely wasn’t alarming. The feeling felt calm, solid, expansive. When in conscious thought I was very distressed about leaving my daughters. To be far away from them was going to be hard. Thankfully both girls have amazingly supportive boyfriends that have been there for them all along and knowing that these exceptional men love my daughters…makes it possible.

Six months later with an opening in the storm I made the jump. Blindfolded, numb, into the arms of the universe. Taking me far away from anything familiar; the constant triggers. Trusting the soul. Deciding to survive. The heart’s gaping wound well bandaged and protected. Praying no one will bump into it. Leaving who mattered to me…no words. We were all so brave saying ” Goodbye ” to one another. A supportive friend said “Spread your wings Fiona. Fly! ” I was literally throwing myself to the universe and seeing where I would land. Surrender to the universe, trust it, and see what happens. It is the only choice I have. With my children planted in my heart, knapsack on my back, purse strewn across my chest I crossed the gap between ramp and plane and headed to my seat.

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The Physical Affects of Grief

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Walking towards the barn my peripheral vision picks up the colour purple. I stop- my clematis is covered in purple blooms- how and when did that happen? Green grass. When did snow become grass? A surge of fear. Where have I been? Life just keeps going- birds building nests, flowers producing buds, everything in nature continuing as in previous years whereas life halted for me. When seeing the purple flowers I am aware that I am being pulled along.

When I venture out in public it shocks me. How is it that people are driving around, walking together, having a coffee, laughing with a friend- don’t they know what has happened? When in a grocery store I find myself searching for someone that has the same look on their face, a reflection of how I feel, just someone who knows, to not feel so all alone, another Mother…I know we would recognize each other. To silently acknowledge the grief and struggle… for them to say in their eyes “I know”.

Driving home, feeling small, Jason’s seat empty, I pull up behind a vehicle with smiling family decals on their back window. So many vehicles have them now. I don’t remember seeing so many before. There is a row of decals in the order of Mom, Dad, Boy, Boy, Girl, Cat, Dog. I thought how awful if one of their children die then what do you do? It would be torture trying to remove your deceased child’s decal- then there would be a space and you would have to move everyone over. Or would you take them all off or would you leave them as they are but then some stranger might say “Oh I see you have 2 boys and a girl, how old are they?” and then what? Either way it would be very sad and painful. Of course nobody thinks that the unimaginable will happen to them.

There is a sheer curtain seperating myself from this unknown world that I am now forced to live in. Feel incredibly misplaced. About six months after Jason died I told my Dr that I wanted to help people, maybe work for an organization such as Drs without borders. This seems so ridiculous now. Even my surroundings one year on still appear foreign and far away. Early this morning while working outside  I saw all from above- it was the strangest sensation. It was as if I was out of my body looking down upon myself, this tired looking person buckling under the weight of her grief and fear, trudging in and out of the barns and across the paddocks stepping on the same footprints that she put there yesterday and the day before and the day before that…..The same routine but internally always changing. I see this person struggling physically-walking slipping trying to keep her legs underneath her while leading 1100 lb animals through snow and over ice. Pushing and pulling the wheelbarrow steeped with manure through the drifted snow. Her upper body pitched forward, lower torso trailing, carrying bags of shavings, bales of hay. No one else, just her. I felt defeated and alone after this experience and it became clear to me that I could not do the horse boarding business any longer.

Back in the house, lemon juice falling onto a fresh cut on my thumb felt oddly satisfying. The sting made me feel alive. Grounded me for that moment.

I am startled by how grief has rampaged through my physical body. Catching a glimpse of myself in a mirror I don’t totally recognize the person looking back at me. Pale, thin, more lines, a downward curve of my mouth. Protruding collarbones catch my eye; where did they come from? People have told me that I am looking so much better which makes me think how ill and gaunt I must have looked before. My eyes look different. Almost like the hazel colour has disappeared. No expression. Dull. Despite adequate nutrition there is a persistent loss of weight and muscle. Upon receiving massage therapy for an onset of sciatica the therapist was astonished at the state of my muscle fibres. Like they have been rearranged. The muscles have a popping, bubbling sensation. Explaining the physical exertion in my job I could tell from her voice that she suspected there was more going on. Lying face down my heart started pounding. I watched the tears start to fall from the horseshoe shaped head support down to the floor. My body began to tremble. I was done for. Now sitting up, nursing a cup of herbal tea, tissue box on my knees, I told her what was going on with me. Being a mother herself she couldn’t imagine. She told me ” grief is physically demanding and can really take a toll on the body and that my body, my nervous system, is in a state of chronic stress and has been for many years. The death of my son has now put my body into a state of collapse. Don’t ignore what your body is trying to tell you.” This became clear to me when one morning I woke up and couldn’t lift the front of my foot. When trying to walk  the toes dragged, it was impossible to stand on my heel. The only way I could walk was to lift my knee up higher. This frightened me and how was I going to do my job? A diagnosis of Foot Drop was made. Thankfully my gait eventually recovered but I was beginning to understand what the massage therapist had told me. This was my body’s  voice and I needed to listen carefully.

Strange things began happening to my eyes. I truly felt that every part of me was weeping so I wasn’t concerned when a tear drop shape slid back and forth across the darkness behind my eye-much like a bright plump rain drop sliding across a window. It was like I was crying inside. While outside at night filling the horse’s water troughs I kept seeing intermittent flashes of light out of the corner of my eye which disappeared as I quickly turned my head. I had myself convinced that this was Jason trying to communicate with me. Weeks later I mentioned this to my Dr. and she suggested going to an ophthalmologist. Turns out it wasn’t Jason, I had a serious problem. The raindrop shapes were called floaters and they were crossing over my retina. The flashing lights were possibly from a tear (rip) in my retina. The next thing I was at the Eye Institute where I received emergency surgery for three retina tears (rips) and the starting of a retina detachment. I had never had any of these concerns before and now I sat in the very same chair in the very same office where Jason had sat for his last eye examination. I was overwhelmed. Shattered. Flooded with grief. The strength and spirit of Jason was with me as I quietly went into the surgical room.

Upon reading the following excerpt from a book by Deepak Chopra I realised that my physical body is actually grieving, suffering; it wasn’t just a sense of heavy pain running through tissue and cells that I was experiencing. If I was going to get through this dark tunnel I was stuck in I needed to tend to my physical suffering. This is my home, body and mind- all one. The body was communicating this to me. I needed to pay attention to its needs, to slow down, to be gentle to it.

” Grief is like depression but even more cold and numbing. The body can feel so heavy and and listless that the person feels dead while they’re still alive. Massive physical disruptions, toxic chemical changes happen right away. Stress, weakness,and decreased functioning will spread from organ to organ. Grief is a state of distorted energy that can last for years. Can make you susceptible to disease. This distortion of energy if allowed to grow can cause incoherence everywhere and if this seed of disruption is allowed to grow the energy of the whole body will break down. “

 

 

 

Meeting Restorative Yoga

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I had made it. I had arrived at the yoga studio. The receptionist hastily directed me to the ‘Earth Room’. Glancing up at the clock, the hands were almost perfectly aligned over the twelve. The Restorative Yoga class that I was aiming for started at twelve. Hurrying down the hall, nearing the ‘Earth’ room, I saw a woman dressed in flowing clothes standing in the doorway with her hand on the knob, getting ready to close the door. She smiled and greeted me with a warm welcome and gestured me into the room. This was the teacher. While apologizing for my lateness I noticed her serene glow. Just being in her space made me feel better somehow.

The room was full to capacity. Rows of heads whipped around to see who the disruptive straggler was. Feeling small and exposed and almost ready to bolt, I hear “MOM!” A wave of elation runs through me. Those voices are my offspring. There at the far side of the room against the wall were my girls sitting crosslegged on their mats; this was everything I needed. They are the most beautiful girls and how thoughtful of them; they had remembered me saying that I felt more comfortable against the wall off to the side- felt supportive and private. Once I saw my daughters, I was so glad that I had made the effort to get myself up off my bedroom floor. Smiling relief spread across our faces as we absorbed one another. I was so proud and inspired by them for their braveness as unbeknownst to everyone else in that room I knew what it took for them to be there as I looked into their grief filled eyes.

We had just recently joined the yoga studio acting upon my Dr’s suggestion that yoga was proving to be effective in times of trauma. At our previous class, a few Mothers had commented on how nice it was to see Mom and daughters taking a class together; what a lovely sight and how they wished their daughters would do that with them. As I smiled and nodded I wanted to scream out what had happened to us; what had happened to Jason, the reason we were there.

So far we had attended a few Hatha flow style classes and I was quickly becoming convinced that yoga was not for me while in this fragile and fatigued state. The lack of strength to stand strongly, to balance in the various yoga poses was too much for my shocked contracted muscles. Trying to learn the many poses, the ‘right’ way to do them, added more stress onto my already frazzled nervous system. I wanted to hide when I would see the teacher’s eyes on me as she started to weave her way through the other students with me as her destination. She would then correct my alignment by placing a hand on my shoulder and hip and invasively opening up my protective hunched up body. Of course her intentions were good and in normal circumstances I would have been very receptive but when you are ‘naked’ and needing to protect your heart it felt intrusive. The one thing that did make an impression on me while in a Hatha class was that when I was in a standing pose with both feet firmly planted on the ground, the sense of connection became apparent. Then to focus on distributing my body weight evenly to all four corners of each foot gave me a new awareness of my feet, how they connected to the floor. The sense of body and mind was centering. The instruction of visualizing roots travelling down my legs and out through the soles of my feet, burrowing deep into the earth was calming with a sense of stability. Most impressive was that while standing in the ‘warrior’ yoga poses it became clear to me that this was what Jason was all about: the symbol of courage, bravery and strength. I did eventually return to Hatha Yoga when I felt physically stronger but for now I needed a more gentle healing type of yoga so here I was today to try out this therapeutic style and the word ‘restorative’ was inviting.

This was to be our first Restorative Yoga class together. My girls had already secured my spot with the props I would be needing: bolsters, blocks, blankets, eye pillow. I noticed that some people had even brought their own pillows and cozy looking blankets from home. With a flick of my yoga mat I was promptly down on the floor with a daughter on each side. Reclining back on a bolster, a folded blanket under the head, arms out to the side with palms facing up, a bolster under the knees, eye pillow placed on the eyes and lastly covered with a Mexican type blanket we began the hour of coming together to be nourished.

The soft sound of tranquil music filled the room and the teacher started a breathing meditation. I felt apprehensive not knowing what to expect. The idea was to observe the breath as it goes in and out of the body. The act of breathing was something that I had never really consciously thought about; I guess because it just happens automatically. Trying to become aware of it without controlling or changing it was challenging. I was wrapped up in judging wether my breath was either too short or too long, too gentle or too forceful, am I doing it right or wrong? This caused my breathing to become uncomfortable. Almost as if the teacher could tell that I was having difficulty, her timely suggestion of concentrating on where the breath enters the nose was taken in. This sensation was most profound. Concentrating on the area below the nostrils just above the upper lip I noticed that the air had a slight coolness when going in and and was slightly warmer when it came back out. With the awareness and curiosity of gently holding the mind right there with each breath, a fleeting sense of ease ran through me. There was no right or wrong. Just to watch. No judgement. It is what it is. The soft chanting music began to wash over me. My mind was settling down. I felt different- can’t explain really- best description would be ‘lighter’.

As I brought this same curiosity and awareness to my ‘whole body’ , noting the suspension and the release on the ebb and flow of my breath, I felt a layer of tension drop allowing a release onto the support of the bolsters. It was a flicker of light from within the darkness, made possible by using something so basic as my breath, which was always with me. A wave of deep emotion surged. The loss, the pain, the deep sadness, the yearning, all came flooding back in with such tremendous force. I was shot right back to the outside of the labyrinth. When it was time to move to another pose we were instructed to gently come up to a seated position. Upon raising myself up off the bolsters, there at my side had been placed a box of Kleenex. No word or expression from the teacher. When we went into the next pose she came over to me and gently placed an additional blanket on me which was incredibly nurturing.

I knew that I was in the right place, a safe space, and so my journey with Restorative Yoga began.

A Mother’s Grief

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There are no words. No mother, no human being, should ever have to lay eyes upon their dead child. The need to be with my son, to help him, to make sure he was ok, was overwhelming. A complete rupture to my psyche. I was thrust into immobilizing fog with no order, no clarity. The sorrow and trauma across my daughter’s faces shattered my heart. Such fear and worry for them. Our lives forever changed. From the very moment that my brain processed the delivered words “Jason has died”, my world spun right off it’s axis. ‘I’ was no more. The extreme anguish that Jason was alone took me to the very edge. I plummeted to such depths of despair beyond any conscious thought. Beyond grief. Into darkness. Isolated. Amputated. Fear. The death of one’s child is a prison. No escape.

Crippled by a feeling of insanity, my mind desperately clung to familiar sounds: the squeaking and crunching of snow under my boots; the grinding and scraping of cleats meeting the lurking ice; the rustling and swishing of snow pants as my legs mysteriously carried me towards the barn. Upon recognizing these sounds there was a moment of self-awareness bringing me temporarily out of the distorted and detached realm that I now existed in. I was no longer part of this world. Feeling as if I was a visitor stuck in between planes of life hovering above the earth. Alone, stripped, raw, soul searching for soul.

Swish-right, swish-left. I see my feet and legs moving beneath me, disappearing and then reappearing, but yet I don’t feel them. The sense is that they are not attached to me. Frightening. I know that I am walking, I see my boot prints. I feel like I am going crazy. Dragging my body from my bed to the barns where daunting chores awaited me, seemed unattainable. Such fatigue. I felt like I was encased in cement. I can’t survive one more second; the second somehow passes. Then it hits, the shocking jolt revisits with such force and speed landing right into the pit of my stomach. A mournful sound comes up my throat. Stomach queasy, mind spinning. Soul-deep yearning. Searing sorrow. My body halts half way to the barns. I don’t feel well. My legs are weak. I am lightheaded. A huge wave of sadness crescendos; I can’t breathe, I am choking, I can’t swallow. There is a huge lump blocking my throat. The weight on my back now getting heavier crushing and caving my chest in. Fainting felt eminent. I knew it would be unsafe in this -32C temperature but part of me was willing to fall into the bleak hands of winter. Thinking of my girls made me fight. Reaching deep, I stood up tall and thrust my chin up to the sky enabling me to finally swallow and breathe.

Upon reaching the barn I set my sight on the hog wire partition. Fighting against a collapse I wrapped my heavily gloved hands securely around the metal bars and let my body go limp. A persistent agonizing ache ran through my legs, arms, chest, back, ribs, teeth, face, like a bad flu. Somehow I eventually was able to summon up just enough energy to perform the next task at hand.

Slowly walking back, looking towards the house, everything started to spin. I became sick to my stomach. No sign of any life. No face at the window. Everything grey. I open the door. One foot in. Empty. Silent. No Jason. A primal guttural sound breaks the silence as I fall to my knees.

Nothing could give me the slightest relief from this raging pain and sorrow until the day I lay down on a yoga mat.