Life’s Cafe
Release
This past month was filled with the normal spectacular events of life- birth, death, and the spaces in between. My mother-in-law died at the age of almost 99; held by someone close to her; it was reported that she ate a bit of dinner, and that as she began the process of dying her last words were “thank you.” She was in a mostly vegetative state for many years, and her death was a blessing. I’m amazed that she was able to speak at all, and thankful that she was feeling grateful. Family and friends created a loving space for all of us to heal.
It feels a bit strange to say what I’m thinking about next. It’s about my cat, Bella. Perhaps a cat’s death mentioned next to a person’s death is an uncomfortable pairing, and some people may object. But these two deaths happened one on top of the other, paired in time. During the mourning period for my mother-in-law, my cat Bella developed a sudden, rapidly growing spreading cancer, untreatable. She stopped eating and started to decline; I brought her to the ASPCA to have her painlessly euthanized. She died in my arms, her nose buried in the crook of my elbow. My ache was alleviated by the lovely holding sensitive response of all the workers and doctors I met on the way as we travelled toward her death, and I returned home without her. She had been mine to care for since she was a kitten, and her calm aware energy was a gift.
My mother-in-law’s death, though expected, was nevertheless a surprise when it finally happened, evoking the memories of our complicated relationship, calling up my feelings about my own parents’ deaths, and heightening my awareness of the growing fragility of the many older people whom I love. We’re all transients, myself included. These thoughts led me to think about reification- how we humans make our attachment figures, human or animal or otherwise, into unchangeable permanent things we can cling too, and that seem to cling to us and tell us who we are. This is an illusion, clearly, both Western and Eastern psychology would agree to that. It’s how we delude ourselves into believing that nothing will ever change and that we are immortal. I found comfort in the different levels and interpretations of reality of the two psychology/philosophies.
Spaces In Between
Freud wrote, in “Mourning and Melancholia,” that normal mourning is the gradual letting go of the relationship that has ended with death, a painful and necessary psychic process. Each of the myriad links to the beloved is gradually weakened and rendered less painful. Contemplative psychotherapy holds that the mind’s contents are malleable, and we must be present to our hearts’ contents. Yoga has given me many years of experience of meditation, relaxation and softening. I was fortunate; I had at least three perspectives to help me deal with my grief.
I remembered that, just as I always tell my students and patients, the first commitment is to the self. I gentled myself. I went out of the way to do nice healing things, lots of yoga and meditation, music to listen to; I got a massage, bought myself a present. Cried when I needed.
February is also my birthday month; I didn’t feel much like celebrating, but others did and I went along to please them and found myself having a pretty good time. I enjoyed working and playing with others but for a while decided to forego the petty torments of bureaucracy. Paperwork could wait for a bit.
Embrace
Two weeks later the event my family and I had been waiting for- my fourth grand child was born. “Release that which is going out and embrace that which is coming in” was the motto of the day. The baby embodies possibility, a new round of attachment and loss, new opportunities- joy! He is a good sleeper, eater and cuddler. He was a big baby- 8 lbs 7 oz, and already has juicy fat cheeks.
On my desk I have a yellow strip of paper that says: “Release that which is going out. Embrace that which is coming in. Leave alone that which has not yet come. Want nothing, and embrace everything.” written by Anonymous, and found in my favorite restaurant, the Ayurveda Café.
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©Copyright 2011 by Lynn Somerstein, PhD, RYT,
therapist in New York, NY. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry.
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