Lately, I’ve been craving twists and heart opening poses in my yoga practice. Fortunately for me, the yoga studio is serving these up in super-sized portions. When the invitation comes, I latch onto it, take the pose as far as I am physically able, and bask in the moment. It feels as luxurious as a hot summer day, and the sweat rolls off of my skin as if it were.
They say that these twists have a way of wringing out “toxins,” and that the heart opening poses work to fill you up so-to-speak. Toxins, in my current reality, means this sickness that my body has been fighting and the pent up emotions that have been buried deep within. As I move towards the coming of Spring, the hurts of years past comes bubbling up — as it does every year at this time. It seems that I am more neutral to it this year, but the season has just begun.
I’ve done a lot of grief work in these past 5 years. The therapy, writing, sifting through years and years of medical records, and everything else has been quite a process. There is only one thing left for consideration. This one remaining thing is to write a letter to the oncologist to ask why, when the hospital records clearly noted less than 6 months, he told us that we had a year to prepare for the inevitable.
Death is never easy. I’m not sure that 11+ more months would’ve helped. Nor am sure that Tom wanted the suffering to go on that long. Why would he? But the truth most certainly would have been better, if only so the kids did not feel like we lied to them. Obviously, that was not our intent.
Although this letter has been on my list of things-to-do for quite some time, I wonder if writing this letter give me the closure I am seeking. I do not expect he will even remember us. If he does, it is doubtful that he will even know what he was thinking back then. As I consider this last task, I wonder what I want to say — today. It is different than the message I had a little as one year ago. I grateful for all the healing.