A Letter For A Younger Me, Just Before He Died
Jan 23, 2023
It's that time of year again.
Where it all begins to bubble up. The memories of where we were, just a few years back. Brian was about to be diagnosed. He was sick and we didn't know what was going on. We didn't have any answers.
This year, I've been yearning to hold and comfort the version of me then. She had no idea what was about to happen. And I wish I could speak to her.
Today I wrote a letter to her. And I want to share it here:
I’m so sorry, my love, but you are about to go through something no person should ever have to go through.
You know how your love has been feeling under the weather?
Well, he actually has cancer. And it’s already spread everywhere. I'm so incredibly sorry.
It’s going to happen so fast, that you won’t process anything until long after he’s gone.
You’ll go into shock. And that’s okay. You’ll need to, to survive.
You’ll do strange things. And you won’t be able to truly fall apart for a very long time.
You’ll feel so angry. But you won’t know how to express that without judging yourself.
The people who show up will not be the people who you expect. And there is so much extra grief in that.
And this whole time, you’ll be walking your child through her own unimaginable heartache. Without your co-pilot.
People will say the stupidest shit.
And I’m sorry to say that this really never ends…
But as you dig deep within yourself, something will begin to happen…
You will start to embody your grief. You will learn to let it out. You will find your people. Your real people.
And one day, you will realize that you are strong.
And not the type of strong that people called you in early grief, when you were in survival…
This is the strength of honouring yourself.
And of allowing your grief and yourself to TAKE UP the damn space.
You will make it.
With all my love,
-Your future self
When Brian first died, I thought I’d never practice yoga again.
In early grief people were quick to give me advice. Take a bath, watch a show, do yoga.
But what they didn’t understand was that my pain was so deep that I couldn’t open myself up to the space that any of those things might create.
It was far too scary.
I needed to survive.
Today I found myself flowing through some poses and was struck by the memory of these completely off-the-mark suggestions people gave me when I was in such deep trauma.
The space from there to here isn’t much. Just four years. And my grief journey will never be over.
But today I celebrated myself for this huge accomplishment.
You see, I have slowly given my grief the space to be safely expressed and now I can once again BE.
If you’ve never experienced this type of pain, this may be hard to understand.
But if you have, then these words are for you, just as much as it’s for me.
My love, you will do it.
You will do it.
You will do it.
You will do it.
You ARE doing it already.
