Adventures of the Traveling Grief Case

August 31, 2019

Dear Dad, 

It’s been a year and 22 days. Summer is ending but the weather is still beautiful. This next month is one of my favorites because the tourists will be gone.

I feel really sad this week. I woke up today missing you. Feeling depressed.

I have gained so much weight this past year and I really need to do something. The worst thing is that my back is bothering me.

There have been so many changes this past year. I definitely ate my feelings. But more than that I think I just stopped caring.

I think I’m going to start doing yoga, walking and meditating. I definitely need some stress relief. Oh, and then there were the four months of extra work.

Love,

Elissa

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This Too Shall Pass 

I was a runner. Not a fast one, but I had endurance. Okay, more of a jogger.

It all started in my effort to quit smoking that first time.

What started as a walk would turn into a few minutes of jogging, and each time I could jog a bit further, or a bit longer. I would wake up early so I could get 20 to 30 minutes in before my workday.

I recall sitting in the living room lacing up my sneakers while I told my dad, “I’m not fast but I can go for a while. I’ve got endurance.”

Dad said to me, “Well, there are racehorses and work horses. The racehorses are fast, but the work horses are strong.” 

Not his best compliment, but he didn’t mean it in a rude way. If you knew Dad, it was a compliment. He was trying to highlight my strength. Dad loved horses and had grown up with them, so I guess it was his best way to relate things.

They say the body remembers.

As I lace up my sneakers these days and press play on that run-it mix, my body slowly shifts from a brisk walk to a slow jog. The lyrics hit me differently this time, but it feels good. It’s like my body, my cells, remember each word, each beat. It’s like my feet can’t help but jog to the rhythm.

Just a little more than two weeks until the anniversary of his death. It will be three years. It feels a little different, a little easier each time.

Okay, maybe easier isn’t the right way to describe it.

Just different.

The memories aren’t as vivid, and I’ve gotten better at maneuvering over and around and through it all. I’m not looking at a calendar every day, so dates don’t stick out in my mind as clearly.

But there’s just something about how the body remembers. 

It’s Saturday morning now and I plan to start weight training today, but my body says no. It pulls me back out to the bike path for another walk that turns into a jog.

I don’t know if it’s the way my body and breath and music all sync together that pushes me into more. Maybe it’s the way the lyrics take me to another place in my mind. I’m pushing my body and maybe the sweat pouring off me is just another way my body can release this grief that it feels and remembers all over.

Those days leading up to the anniversary.

India Arie is in my ear singing about how “my body is nice and strong, but my heart is in a million pieces,” and I’m thinking how when I first ran to this song it helped me navigate a breakup, which, when you think about it, is just another form of grief.

But now it seems I’ve come so far from that. Now I listen to these words and think about Dad:

“So, I pray for healing in my heart.

To be put back together what is torn apart.

And I pray for quiet in my head.

That I can hear clearly what God says.

Then I hear the whisper that this too shall pass.

I hear the Angels whisper that this too shall pass.

My ancestors whisper that this day will one day be the past.

So I walk in faith that this too shall pass.”

I am breathing deeply.

My feet pound the pavement.

My legs burn.

I put my arms out and close my eyes like I’m flying.

Tears slide down my cheeks and sweat pours from every orifice, but it feels good.

I feel alive.

And I know I’m crying and hurting but it’s okay.

I feel strong!

I feel like that workhorse, as I embrace it all. The pain from missing Dad. The pain from my muscles strengthening. I feel it all.

India Arie continues in my ear:

“All of sudden I realize

That it only hurts worse to fight it.

So I embrace my shadow

And hold on to the morning light.”

As the choir of background singers reminds me that “this too shall pass,”

I’m running again. But this time I’m not running from my grief, I’m running into it.

I’m diving in headfirst!

No tiptoeing. I’m feeling it all and letting it wash over me, knowing that this too shall pass.

And each day is a new day. A new chance we are given. And if we learn nothing else from death and loss and grief it is that we must live while we are here. And in living, we must take chances and feel and embrace our fears and shadows and push past the pain because this too shall pass.