A Death in the Family

by Nina

From the Sky by Melina Meza

Yesterday morning, shortly after I awoke, I received a phone call from my son letting me know that my uncle had died. He was 86 and in poor health so the news wasn’t totally unexpected, yet because he wasn’t suffering from a terminal illness the way both my parents had—he died of a heart attack—it was a bit of a shock. So then there was that surreal feeling— you’re living in the same world, with the same furniture in your house and the same scenery out your window and the same list of errands you need to get done that you were leaving in just moments before, yet somehow everything has ineluctably changed. After making a couple of phone calls and talking with my aunt, my cousin and my son, Brad and I went out for one our usual Sunday walks. We talked about my uncle as we walked, reminiscing about quintessential stories of him (one of my special memories was of him, knowing how nervous I was before a certain public event I needed to participate in—a book party at Donna Karan’s New York store for the release of Yoga: The Poetry of the Body—carefully preparing for me a “magic” baked apple that he said would protect me from any unpleasantness I might encounter). On the way home from our walk, we even stopped at the plant nursery and bought fertilizer for our soon-to-bloom spring garden.

But when we got home, we were both hit with sudden waves of fatigue. It was a reaction we both found surprising, and yet that was how we were both feeling. And this morning, I found myself, though wide awake, feeling even more exhausted. Then I remembered that fatigue, surprisingly, can be one of the symptoms of grief, so I went and reread an interview I’d done with Bonnie Maeda, a former hospice nurse who teaches yoga for moving through grief, and sure enough she said:

“Also, there are some common physical manifestations of grief such as fatigue, a sense of heaviness, anxiety, and lack of motivation, which I believe the practice of yoga can support and even improve. I believe each of our emotions have an energy that presides in the body. Yoga, with its movement and focus on the mind -body connection, can support an individual's experience of their personal grief response.”

My experience of grief after losing my parents was so different. In particular, with my mother’s death, I kept saying that I was surprised at how closely grief resembled stress. And because that was how I was feeling, the yoga practice that I turned to almost every day was a very long session of Legs Up the Wall pose, with a eye pillow over my eyes and a focus on my breath. Even though I sometimes cried while I was in the pose, I did feel like that yoga practice kept me grounded in a way that allowed me to do all the things I had to do (as most of you probably know, there is a ton of business to take care of when a member of your immediate family dies).

But for this loss, as I prepare myself to travel to the East Coast to be with my family, I’ll be turning to different practices. As always, the yoga that’s helpful for you in a particular situation varies from person to person as much as the situations themselves. As Bonnie said:

“My favorite poses vary depending on where the student is in their grieving process. This is not necessarily a chronological time. It is more how they are processing their emotions, and the physical manifestations at the time. But in general what I have found to be beneficial working with students are the poses that soothe the nervous system. Forward bends, such as Parsvottanasana to a chair or blocks, seated forward bends, and supported Shoulderstand. I also link two or three standing poses together in a flow-like sequence to create a rhythm for the body and the breath.”

For me, finding the right practice for myself on a given day is kind of like imagining the right meal to cook. Just thinking about it, what sounds good? Today, the idea of moving with my breath sounds about right.

My uncle didn’t practice yoga but I do feel the way that he lived the last part of his life was a great example of healthy aging. He loved New York City, where he lived his whole life, and as long as he was able, he walked briskly all over the city. And his passions for theater, the visual arts, politics, baseball, his writing projects (he published a memoir called In My Father’s Bakery), and baking his own bread, and the enduring love he had for his wife kept him fully engaged in the present. But it was a very small practice of his that I kept coming back to yesterday. Every day, no matter what his plans were for that day—even if he was going to be staying in—he would put on a freshly laundered dress shirt and tie (some of his ties were really beautiful—I especially loved the flowery ones from Liberty of London).

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