In the muffled chaos of rolling mats, winding belts, and returning blocks to their rightful spot on the shelf, I approached my yoga teacher. I felt compelled. During class, she had revealed a personal detail from her life. Her husband had died suddenly, leaving her a widow. She mentioned it in passing, part of a greater statement about yogic philosophy. But her voice cracked.
I wanted to say something. I wanted to show that I heard her. I wanted to make it better.
So I walked right up to her, looked her in the eye, and I told her how sorry I was that her husband had died. Then, feeling that was not enough, wanting to fix it somehow, tie it up with a bow for her, I said, “You seem like the kind of person who is going to live well anyway.”
Remembering those words now, I cringe. I got it wrong. So, so wrong.
Once upon a time, I was that person who cared so much, meant so well, and messed up so badly as soon as she opened her mouth. Grief made me uncomfortable, so I tried to fix it. I unwittingly kept the grieving at arms-length -- out of fear, I think, the subconscious superstition of contagious bad luck. Or maybe my discomfort stemmed from my impotence. Whatever the reason, I was clueless and inadvertently cold.
***
When my aunt died this winter, I wrote a card to my uncle, widower twice by 70.
“We are loving you and missing Sharon.”
Leave it at that. There’s no fixing a dead wife.
I’m still the girl who waits around after yoga to say something. Only now, I say far less. I stand near the grieving and let the discomfort envelop me without shrinking away. Pain is not supposed to feel good. Is that what my yoga teacher was trying to tell with her story that day? How to just be with pain. The grieving don’t need my soothing. They need my bravery. It’s all I wanted from anyone after Laurel died.
Falling to pieces inside of my skin, choking on the shock and heartbreak of my crisis, missing my dead baby girl, I just wanted the world to be brave.
Yes, this really resonates with me. I have been working a lot on just sitting with the pain, the heartache, the unknown. It is actually harder when people are cheery and try to make things sound like they are going to be okay and "you never know, maybe something will work" when I know it won't. I don't like dealing with people's own discomfort with my situation. It is hard enough going through infertility, I don't need the added complication of managing other people's baggage and fear of the dark side of life and emotion. Do you know what I mean? I know this sounds cold to some people, or at least hard to understand, but sometimes I want to say "if you aren't going to walk with me down this path, not knowing where it will end and how dark it is going to get, if you are unwilling to face the fear and pain head on, then let me be, it is easier on my own." Hugs to you, my dear.
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