Latest / Beyond the Arc: Reflections on Resilience, Identity, & Life Podcast / My Body Remembered the Grief Before I Did

Transcript

My Body Remembered the Grief Before I Did · Beyond the Arc: Reflections on Resilience, Identity, & Life Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Amy Gamble, and welcome to Beyond the Arc.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Today's essay is about grief, but maybe not grief in the way we usually talk about it.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes grief doesn't announce itself.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we don't even consciously know it's there.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: We just feel tired, a little sad, a little off.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then,
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: if we're quiet enough,
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: we begin to understand what our body may have known before our mind caught up.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is, my body remembered the grief before I did.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: A few days ago,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I sat in the living room with the sun shining in the window,
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: looking out at my peaceful view of sprawling chestnut trees.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was feeling down in the dumps for no apparent reason.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was fatigued without having moved much.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was sad without really knowing why.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: In my never-ending quest to understand myself,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: what's going on with me emotionally,
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And for heaven's sakes,
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: to not want to feel bad, I dug into all the reasons I might be despondent.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Was it the medication?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Was it the interrupted sleep?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Was it the rainy days layered back to back to back?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Surely it wasn't the weather,
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: because for two days straight the sun was shining and the skies were blue.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: The rain hanging over was over.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, it wasn't any of those things.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And of course,
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: right as I begin to write about where my down mood came from,
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: a beautiful red cardinal appears at my bird feeder.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Some may know that there are those of us who believe the red cardinal is a sign
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: of our lost loved ones looking over us, paying us a visit, reminding us we are love.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as if it were magic or divine intervention,
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: or for all the doubters,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: pure coincidence,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: the red cardinal is currently hopping along the green grass,
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: picking seeds off the ground.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously feeling safe in the little bird haven I created earlier in the year.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Back to the depressing mood I couldn't shake.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: It turns out I'd not consciously thought about a significant anniversary date.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: In August 2023, my mother took a turn for the worse.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: She lost consciousness.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And just like that,
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: the woman who was my best friend, mother, and confidant was taken away from me.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: The person I went to with everything.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: The one who had my back when many turned theirs.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Loyal all the way until she could no longer interact with me anymore.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Her spirit had left.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Only her tired, worn-out body remained for a few days longer.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: After a few nights of solid sleep, my natural inclination for reflection returned.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: I realized my grief journey had taken me back to that nursing home room.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: The tears welled up in my eyes.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Not a devastating feeling.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Simply an acknowledgement of loss.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Admission of Sadness.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: All the while I realized my body had remembered long before my mind caught up.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had that happen?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're going along living life and then suddenly an anniversary date
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: of some sort comes up and interrupts,
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: maybe even displaces the mood, the energy, the motivation to move freely.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned something significant in the past three years.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: The impact of people we love or who are no longer available to us still remains in spirit.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But when it sinks into your bones and you feel loss in your body, mind,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: and spirit,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: it strikes a chord,
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: hits a nerve, and if you're like me, you might not be expecting it.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Grief is a lifelong journey.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: It has no end point.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's one of the biggest disservices to people,
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: attempting to put a word into a box,
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: package it up, and hand it back to us, all nice, neat, and tidy.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Grief is not nice, neat, and tidy.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't fit into a box.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't travel on a linear line with timelines for this healing and endpoints for that one.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And now,
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: quite honestly,
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: as I embody this silent revelation,
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: so many other things in my life have a much deeper meaning.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Grief is almost an all-encompassing word without borders.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: In the past, that might have made me uncomfortable.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: As a goal-driven person practicing an action-oriented life with timelines,
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Telling me grief is infinite and beyond might not have sat well with me.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: As I sit here typing these words,
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: I remembered my bird feeder hadn't received the normal allotment of seed.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I stepped outside and looked down at the ground underneath the feeder, and there was a feather.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: A cardinal and a feather.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't seeking signs or thinking about them.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: My heart was sharing with you how I came to understand why I wasn't feeling so great.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now two cardinals.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful red cardinals.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Red.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: My mother's favorite color.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: She always told me she'd be with me in spirit.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose I'm like most people.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: When you don't feel well, there's only so much inspiration or motivation you have.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: After all these years, I've finally learned to give myself a break.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: To rest when my body calls for it.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: To allow my mind to drip in the tears of sadness.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: To let my spirit resist pushing aside the uncomfortable feelings.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: All my friends are coming today, one right after the other, now the dove.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: I take that as a message of peace,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: the feather a message of protection,
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: the cardinal a message of presence, and all of nature a message of love.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: What started as an essay about grief gently turned into an overwhelming message of gratitude.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Grateful for the way a simple act of feeding the birds has turned into love,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: joy, peace, and yes, even sadness.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: All those emotions can coexist.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And while I don't wish for loss of any kind,
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can appreciate the infinite emotions grief can bring about.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: The question is, am I silent enough to hear them, and brave enough to embrace them with honesty?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: On reflection, maybe that's one of the things grief eventually does teach us.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: We don't always have to solve what we're feeling.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we can simply notice it,
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: make room for it, and perhaps even listen to what it has to say.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: For me, on this particular day,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: it came through a feather, a dove, and a couple of beautiful red cardinals.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever you believe those things mean, I know what they meant to me.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: I know what they mean to me.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for spending these few minutes with me.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Amy Gamble, and this is Beyond the Arc.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Reflections on Resilience, Identity, & Life.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time,
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: take care of yourself and maybe pay attention to what shows up
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: when you get quiet enough to notice.