Honoring Her

I woke up today to a gorgeous sunrise. There was hot pink in the clouds and back in my Evangelical days I liked to tell myself if I saw hot pink, my favorite color, that meant God loved me. Cute little idea I made up to comfort myself when all signs said otherwise. I now see only the beauty of nature without ridiculous meanings but still love a hot pink sunrise. As with most tragic events in life I didn't see what was coming.

A friend had texted me asking how I knew my friend Bridget. This is a typical thing to do in social media when you see you both know someone and are curious as to how the connection happened. I thought nothing of it. Scrolling through Facebook while starting to text my friend back I see a post that sent me sideways. It looked like something had happened to Bridget but I was confused and couldn't figure it out. I then see the words "Sorry...she didn't make it." What? Who didn't make it? Didn't make what? I scrolled further and was pummeled with the posts saying she'd been hit by a car, driver drove away, and she later died. 

I'm piecing together when we met and the timeline of our friendship. I started going to her yoga classes after running a marathon injured and having no other outlet for exercise. She was an amazing guide who could get you into a pose and help you to feel the full expression of it. Though I say my first time I stepped on a mat was 23 years ago, my true yoga practice didn't come about until I met her. I started taking her workshops and got deeper into my yoga journey. When I was curious about yoga teacher training she was my biggest encourager. She believed in me when no one else did. After becoming a teacher she vouched for me and helped me to get a teaching job where she was teaching. There was an acceptance I felt which motivated me to try harder. My most profound mentor.

When someone dies it's typical for people to gush about them, push aside their bad qualities and anoint them to sainthood. But for Bridget she truly was one of the good people. She exuded a kindness that was genuine. When you spoke she listened, was engaged and you felt heard and seen. She radiated a glow around her of warmth and love. She didn't gossip, didn't speak bad about others, and was held in high regard by anyone that came in her presence. The world was truly a better place with her in it.

All the clichés on death are screaming in my head ~ tell people what they mean to you before it's too late, you don't know what you've got till it's gone, I thought there would be more time. Yet they are true. I know I thanked her but did she know just how deeply she touched me? Perhaps I didn't know until this moment. 

So I am pondering how I can honor this amazing woman who I had the priviledge of being in my life for a short time. I look to how she lived her life ~ with kindness, compassion for all, understanding and love. I don't know when my last day will be but I'm committing to a new path of being like Bridget.

My favorite saying which is used frequently in yoga fully defines her life:

Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu ~ May all beings everywhere be happy and free and may the thoughts, words and actions of my own life contribute to that happiness and freedom for all.

Thank you, Bridget. Thank you for your teaching, your wisdom, your guidance, your belief in me and for showing us all how to live. I'll miss you deeply.

He was human

I don't hide that I'm glad my father is dead. I know that's harsh for many to hear as they had a lifetime of being cared for and adored but that wasn't my experience. Today is his birthday. I'm sure one of my brothers is composing some post to honor him, which I will completely ignore. Even when he tried to love me you could tell it was difficult for him. He told me to my face "You are my least favorite." Well gee...then I'm not even a favorite at all. All the "Daddy Issues" snarky cuts and comments apply here. He messed me up.

This isn't about his backstory but I do need to acknowledge how horribly abused he was as a child. He felt by not beating us in the front yard with other kids laughing (this happened to him) that he'd broken the cycle. Instead of going to therapy and dealing with his trauma he became a pastor. I'd say the jokes write themselves from here but that's a pretty painful statement.

Recently I was shuffling my Spotify and one of my favorite songs came on, "Don't fall in love with a dreamer". A memory came back that I'd long forgotten where my father said how much he loved that song. I blew it off in the moment out of not caring but now so many years later it struck me as an odd song for him to like. The song is about two lovers last night together knowing they will say goodbye forever in the morning. My father was hard core Baptist and I can't fathom this had ever been his experience, yet it hit him hard. Another memory sprung up of him telling he loved the song "Memory". 

Touch me
It's so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun...

I sensed sadness and regret from him when he'd told of loving these songs. And if I dig deep I could say he always had a melancholy sadness. I do know he wanted to love me. What hurts the most was it was obligatory love and not natural. He believed in truth at all costs so this is why he had no issue telling me I didn't measure up. How much of his own self hatred was projected onto me? Why me? I hurt him too. After a 3 hour knock down fight at a restaurant where I sobbed for him to hear me and care about me, I left saying, "I love you Dad but I don't like you." He never let that go and carried it to his grave.

My father was a human trying to get by on this planet and he made statements that destroyed me. He was a human. Only human. If I allow him grace then how much more grace should I allow myself?

He died at 73 years old of Alzheimer's. His older sister died 2 months later of this. His younger sister now has it. My chances don't look good. I have relationships that need reconciliation. I have some people that I never want to see again. So this gives me roughly 21 years give or take to make it right.

Why are you still thinking about that?

I've been in and out of some form of therapy for at least 30 years. If you looked at the subjects and issues I speak to my therapist(s) about you'd say I was crying over the same stuff with no getting to the other side. Yet I've found even when going over the same things, the therapy and what I get out of it is different. You let something out, gain a new insight, and maybe it's good for a bit but then a memory comes back that sends you sideways and you look at it from a new angle. It's the same but it's not. 

Most people expect our healing to be linear and if you aren't "all better" in whatever timeline they deem appropriate then it's on you. I once had a pastor say that if you weren't over something within a year, no matter how horrific or how long the trauma went on, then you were now sinning. Gee....the church victim blaming? Who would have seen that coming?! Thankfully I no longer believe in "sin" so I'm free to go at whatever pace is right for me.

We tend to expect others to turn their feelings off and on at will. We are dismissive when we see pain that we feel should have been done by now. So the hurting person stays silent for fear of being shamed or having some well worn cliché thrown in their face. We applaud those that seem to skip through life without a care and chastise those whose feelings and thoughts linger on what happened to them. 

Hanging onto bad memories is also a trauma response. Our minds feel the need to stay on guard and part of that is holding the memories close. Our brains do not have the same wiring as those who haven't experienced horror. In many ways we feel behind compared to others.

I do have many thoughts and memories I don't share because I feel to do so would bring on shaming. If you made a bad choice then you might further silence yourself for fear of being told you deserve this pain. Though I will say after decades of this I'm a little better at figuring out who is safe for me. 

When teaching yoga or meditation I frequently say, "You can't control your thoughts. Your brain is going to fire them over and over, and this is good as it means you're alive! But you can acknowledge a thought without attaching to it and spiraling downward with it." I'm working on staying away from that spiral.