I have a Dog Yoga calendar hanging on my wall at work, it has been a tradition for many consecutive years. Sometimes it’s Puppy Yoga, one year was Cat and Kitten Yoga, basically an entire plethora of animals getting their zen on. Adorable animals Photoshopped into elaborate yoga poses…because, well, why not.
Here we see ‘Sunny’ the dog, who is apparently doing a triangle pose variation. Because, Sunny is mad for yoga, clearly.
My calendar is stuck in November 2013 and I can’t seem to change it, I don’t know how to just yet. I have always crossed off each day with a big, X. It always felt like a reminder to be present each day, a wink, a nod to say that time passes and animals are funny when they pretend to do yoga, because both of those things are true. I stopped crossing out the dates. Dad had his accident on the 26th and the rest remain uncrossed. I can’t seem to get back on track. Poor Sunny is now frozen in my inability. I didn’t even look at December’s yoga pose – I am sure it is equally hilarious but – that too is in the past.
Perhaps winter is just dragging on too long. Perhaps trying to get back into daily routines, and the functionally mundane, has me weighted, like my body parts are switching places, all dysfunctional and misplaced. Earlobes replacing fingers, a hip-joint for a knee – bending every which way but right – and a skull pressing on the inside of my rib cage, a headache from the inside out. Perhaps some days are just going to be better than others. And that is Ok.
I mentioned my feelings of dense aimlessness to Aunty Lorna today, and she reiterated the same sad sentiments, miles away, but the same. We are all wanting to be able to move on with our ‘before’ lives but that just ends up feeling like yet another goodbye. The consideration that it has only been one month and a few days, and that this isn’t going to be a permanent affliction is something that is hard for me to grasp. I felt better to hear her parallel journey and peaceful to know that despite all immediate seeming odds that ‘this too shall pass’.
People keep telling me they are sorry that I lost my dad. My macabre sense of humour makes me think that perhaps I have just misplaced him. The kind of thing you lose and it shows up unexpectedly, the extra sock hiding behind the dryer. “Gosh darn it, now where did I put my Father, I could have sworn he was just here a minute ago.” I hold on only to the idea of finding him again, in another place and another time. Sometime, someplace. My grandmothers both passed away at 94 and 99 respectively, so my perception of “old age” resides in a very warped periscope. If only the beauty and robustness of life could always be packaged and preserved into an end calling determined completely by a ripe old age. One of the few consolations for me is that it took me this long into adult life to have to experience such deep loss. Sometimes the realization of blessings come in unusual packages.
This is our park, it is not dark anymore when I go past it on an evening. The sun is not as resigned to an early wintry bedtime. I know that the smokey tentacles of this malaise are well versed with the draughty parts of my mind. So I have to keep those areas tightly sealed so that they can’t seep in. There is just too much good and everything left to do. I want to feel like a spotlight from the heavens is trying to help illuminate a new path, that perhaps before would have been too dark and unpaved for me to venture. I like to think that perhaps my dad flipped the switch, so I will explore, explore, explore.
Oh Tracy, yet another blog to reduce me to tears of the same loss but also of laughter. Now, that’s a really special gift.
Tracy, how eloquently you pen the journey of grief, the gut wrenching feeling of total loss, and a sense that NOTHING will ever be the same again. In some respects I too am on that same journey, but yet still have Chris with me. A damaged broken Chris, that every day feels like it might be the last one we have together. I also identify with the constant stream of tears, and wonder myself where do they all come from? I now do know why people describe feeing that their ‘heart’ is broken, the overwhelming feeling that there is something seriously wrong inside, a gap, void, useless space! Jim can never be replaced, he was unique, but I know in my heart that he would have hated surviving this tragic accident if it had meant that he was unable to do all the things he loved. So for me, there is just a small ‘crumb’ of comfort. We WILL meet with him again, this I am totally certain of, hold on to that, and go forward as he would so want you too.
With my love to you
Cyndy xxx
Tracy,
You write so beautifully. It’s strange how your words cause such deep and painful twangs of sadness , and also make me smile. Thank you for continuing to write and share here, it makes me feel closer to him, until we meet again.
I love you
PS
Blue and Cash could totally do dog yoga
Tracy
I’m in the middle of a rather sleepless night so have caught up with your blog and the latest comments from Cyndy and Lorna. My reasons for insomnia are trivial when i read these, but at the time they were consuming my brain with anger and frustration. How easy it is to forget the things that matter and be overtaken by meaningless trash.
I also looked again at the picture heading up your blog. Closely – and then individually you all come alive. Tracy – you’re an idiot. Then closer – you ARE the most beautiful sister! Trudy – serene – and closer – the most beautiful (really!). And then Kareen – scrubbed up well – and then the most capable, loving, outrageous, warm, huggable person on the planet. And Jim. Just Jim. I think his first words to me were “F*&^ off you Prick”. I can’t remember my last words to him but I’d like to think they were similar. He would smile at that.
Feeling your pain. Thinking of you. Loving you. xxx