Breaking off

There is a philosophy in yoga that says we cannot lose anything that is truly ours. Our material things, jobs, relationships, even our bodies, are simply on loan from the divine. Who we are is deeper and wider than what we feel, what we do, where we go...

All the loss we have had this past year feels like a breaking off. The breaking off of parts of my heart that Mr. Carrico and John have taken with them. The breaking off of my dreams for my son Anthony. Those broken pieces feel like pieces of me... gone. Just gone. Gone are two wonderful people who loved me just as I am. Gone are the opportunities to learn from them and appreciate them. Gone are the naive assumptions that our family had reached our tragedy limit. Gone are the comforts of thinking that there will always be time later...

What is gone feels so much like parts of ME gone. I keep looking down, expecting a physical body part to be missing; surprised that I still have two hands; surprised that this body still wants to eat, sleep and work. I wonder what is left? After all of this breaking off, how much of my heart is left here?

That is how I feel...but I know that is not how Life works. When I can stop fighting the pain for a brief moment, I see a slightly different perspective.

Maybe this journey of grief is less about ME breaking off and more like layers of "not me" being pulled off. It is painful in its unfamiliarity like new skin in the sun. Maybe this shock of loss is my call to shake free from everything that keeps me from growing - guilt, fear, anger. Maybe that feeling of my heart breaking off is really peeling off its outer shell to contain more.

I still ask "what's left" and I'm still not sure. I am still so raw. I feel so sad and tired and old and sometimes scared.

But this is what I want, and this is what I will work toward - a bigger, kinder, wiser and more grateful heart. A soul that is not afraid of the sun. A woman who knows that her smile is a better testamonial of love than her tears...