Bracing Against Life

I’ve been moving through something the past year that has been so hard to name. However, these past few weeks, through a series of Synchronicities, I’ve begun to wrap intellectual understanding around the ineffable contours of grief. I want to get this down in writing, in an effort to plot myself on my own map.

Around the second anniversary of Tanner’s death, something strange happened. This was last year; 2024. In the lead up to the anniversary, I learned that my father was facing health challenges, and that my girlfriend of more than 20 years, was losing in her courtship with cancer. She died three days before Tanner’s death anniversary. My body seized. I was so tight and twisted that I developed nerve pain from the soaring stress and anxiety. I knew at the time I was in a harsh control pattern. I was literally bracing against life. I could not hold, take in, digest, or integrate any of these realities. I was frozen and deathly afraid. Bracing against another catastrophic loss.

I spent the whole year trying to unwind this “bracing” without really being able to identify what the cause was. I explored all of the obvious ones. My Dad’s potential death, the feeling of unfinished business and abandonment... The death of a friend my age. The realization of how short and sweet life is. The grief of her unbelievably impactful presence here on earth. Etc. I really went in and worked with all of these threads without any real progress for my body. I mean, things have gotten better, but I could still feel the bracing underneath.

In the meantime, the mystical container in which I held Tanner’s death began to fall apart. Instead of having a spiritual connection to him and the whole event, I began to see it as just “wrong”. I blamed myself. "If only I could have just done this one thing differently, he’d still be here." I held myself as the sole guilty party. I made mistakes in his life. I wasn’t the perfect mom, or even the perfect human, and these “mistakes” had murdered him. I cannot even adequately express how guilt ridden, remorseful, and persecutory, my narrative became over time. On one hand, I think all parents who loose children walk the road of guilt and responsibility. On the other hand, it’s been quietly, slowly, destroying me. I’ve lost almost 20 pounds. It’s surreal how unconscious much of this was. I wasn’t really aware of how negative my container for holding his death had become.

Of course, all of this resulted in feeling totally unworthy. My confidence had plummeted. I felt so out of control. A true identity crisis.

I began praying for a breakthrough. I’d been feeling so lifeless, joyless, and dry.

As an answer to that prayer, the synchronicities began to show up and reveal pieces of the puzzle.

Not long ago, I met with a favorite client. We have these very deep meandering conversations. Much like my conversations with Tanner. My client mentioned something about "Spiritual Anxiety” and introduced me to a religious story where the Mother feels spiritual anxiety because her child God had spent the whole night out of the house. When they said the words “spiritual anxiety” it hit my body as truth. This was something I needed to explore.

At the same time, I was watching “The Chosen”. It was taking me back to my church days as a child and I realized how far away I felt from God. My spirit was dry.

This led me to discover the whole narrative I outlined above. I really wasn’t conscious of how bad things had gotten as far as the “container” in which I hold his death. I had lost the spiritual underpinnings. The complete knowing I had in the beginning that even though I hated the reality of his death, that his death was part of his story. His ending. And that God knew what he was doing when he called him home. That Tanner had been suffering here. That his death was a kind of ultimate healing for him. I knew this in my cells when he died. It felt like an unshakable knowing. But over time, this “knowing” wasn’t nurtured. A new vine was. A vine that has bore the fruit of fear.

I don’t want to make any of this wrong. It’s simply part of my grief journey. The part where I got frozen and anxious for a year. The part where I lost touch with the spiritual and mysterious qualities of death. That I unconsciously tried to be in control by feeling guilty for something that was out of my control. They often say that’s what guilt is. A way to control the uncontrollable. I moved from being in a courtship with life, with the “living vine”, to believing that “I made my reality”. That I was in ultimate control, and that I had f@cked it up beyond comprehension.

And, I’m not exactly on the other side yet. I don’t have any deep revelations here. Other than to remember that the way I "contain" my life through narrative has an enormous impact on me. Not just on my mental well being, but also my physical well being. That having a spiritual context in life is existential, not just essential. Spirituality, or a Higher Power, is life blood.

As for what I am doing now… I am consciously talking back to the Death Mother who persecutes me. I am seeing myself as God sees me. Loveable. I am opening back up to Spirit. And most importantly, I am listening. This is the biggest one. Listening to my own running narrative. Listening to God. What God wants for me. AND listening to Tanner. He loved me unconditionally. With adoration. He would want me to be happy. He’d want me to live without searing guilt. I’ve had the breakthrough, that it is time to write a new chapter here. One that is open to life. One that bears the fruit of broken open-heartedness once again.