let the healing continue

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.

It was while lying in savasana, that all this and more came bubbling up. In the darkness, I felt free to let some of it go. But as  I tried to release, I felt resistance as if I was being told, “NO!”  Sometimes it’s easy and often times not. As if she knew what I needed, the yoga instructor came to me. She gently took hold my ankles and began swinging my legs back and forth. It was like when you’re little and your mom holds you in her arms and rocks you — gently soothing your woes and letting you know that you are safe to just let it go. And so I did.

In these next few weeks, whether I consciously plan it or not, I expect that my answer to writing the letter will come. Until then, let the healing continue.