Perception is Everything

(This  blog entry was originally made back in July 2014, and for whatever reason, recently I found it was no longer on my page so I'm reposting it.)

Sitting here in this chair on my deck in the sun, periodically adjusting the umbrella when it get's too intense; I miss my Mom.  Technically, my grandmother, as she was my father's mother; but as she raised me,--she was mom.   All of this first spring without her, I have sat in "her" spots in the back yard.  The ones I constantly had to shade with the umbrella, or coerce her to move from,  often moments away from disaster.

You see, she was 102 when she passed from this world last October, and for the last 9 years of her life, she lived with my family and me.  Her favorite thing in the world, (well, besides flowers and baked potatoes), was to be warm.  And where better to do that than in the California sun which beams brightly on our backyard for a majority of the year? Only problem was,--when she got too hot, she fainted.  But she didn't care.  As soon as she had dressed and finished breakfast each morning, out she would go to the deck, to sit in the sun and read, and later, when her eyesight was failing, just to sit in the sun.  More times than I can count, I came upon her just as she was losing consciousness from the heat.  She went to the hospital on more than one occasion, when I came out too late.  She always recovered,  with no memory of what had happened. So, as I have been basking in the sun these days, missing her; I have come to appreciate the risk she took.  I get it.  Sometimes doing what you love is worth the risk.

Now, to zero in on the point of this post and acknowledge that my mom is only one of many loved ones that have recently departed from this plane.  In the last 5 years, we have "lost": my father, 2 of my aunts, both my husband's grandmother and her mother, and all three of our dogs.  Each one, whether human or not, had a special place in our hearts and lives.  My mother, my husband's great grandmother, and our final beloved dog all have died within the last nine months.  Additionally, my father's sister is ailing and a my maternal grandmother has inoperable breast cancer and is declining despite having been quite well for a year.

There have been times recently when my husband and I have looked at each other and just said, "please, no more, it's too much to take."

These experiences have done two things for me.  They have given me the kick in the pants that I needed to be serious about getting fit again, so that, hopefully; I can live to a ripe old age in good health, (more on that in my next entry).  Secondly, they have gotten me to really begin thinking about this thing we call loss.

Two days after our dog died, I was walking with some members of GirlTrek, (a fitness group that I belong to), and I had a bit of an epiphany.  As people often do when talking to someone who has lost a pet, one of the women asked if I was going to get another dog.  I said,  "no, not right away", and she went on to say that she was holding off on bringing another pet home because she couldn't stand the feeling of loss when they pass.  To a certain extent I agreed with her, --the feeling of having a piece missing, can be so hard to bear.  But as we continued walking and talking I came to the conclusion that, to quote Tennyson, " 'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.", and I expressed this sentiment to her.  These thoughts may or may not have come into being due to a recently renewed meditation practice, and an interest in exploring the concept of non-attachment. Nevertheless, they were real and new to me.

Upon further reflection, I began to think about people who have lost much 'more' than a pet, say their spouses, homes; or as has recently happened to an old friend and also to a cousin of mine, their child.  How do they go on? How do they cope?    

What came to me that day was that my mindset on the situation was in error.  Even with all the evidence to the contrary, I have been acting like objects and people are permanent, and that furthurmore, they are something that we can actually possess, --that we are capable of losing.  That maybe infants are onto something and perhaps Piaget should have kept his observations to himself...  But seriously,  but then and there  on that trail, I realized that all the pain of loss stems from these two beliefs or feelings.  As I walked on, a sense of calm and gratitude swept over me.  I realized that if I thought of my time with my dog as a gift, a happy accident, I could be grateful for the time that I had with her.   

So now, lately, as my emotions catch up with my intellect and I stop waiting for my mom to return from wherever it is she has been since October.   I become fully cognizant of the new reality of our family unit and sometimes a sad, helplessness, creeps in.  At these times, I actually start thinking about what I could have done differently,  how I could have "saved" her. I have to say to myself, almost out loud, "it's done."  It's been hard, but getting easier to shift to being grateful for the blessing that she was in my life for almost 50 years and to how fortunate we were that our souls crossed paths. This emerging new way of thinking has cleared a path for me to be able to be with my remaining grandmother in the moments that we have left and just enjoy her; rather than avoiding contact in order to steel myself against yet another perceived impending loss. I think that in the end we all are better served by this shift.