My aunt died this morning after suffering through a terrible degenerative disease that I don’t think any of us ever fully understood.
The last time I saw her she was making apologies for her “alien arm” - so called because she no longer had any control over its sporadic movements. She apologized for it each time I got too near her. I didn’t like to see her fretting over her arm’s uncontrollable behavior even as she had difficulty walking and forming words. So I asked about the grandkids and what they thought about the diagnosis the doctors had given her arm, reminding her that an “alien arm” sounds like a pretty amazing thing to have through the eyes of her beloved grandkids. She mentioned that when my uncle, a known curmudgeon, is helping her she sometimes hits him with her rogue arm. I joked that he probably deserved it and we all got a chuckle out of that. That was eight months ago, and now she’s gone.
Last spring, I was managing my own insecurities about a body being affected by illness that I didn’t know how to control. In November I began using an app to help me track my water intake after discovering that chronic dehydration was a significant contributor to my health challenges. Each morning I start my day with the same beloved routine: after washing my face and brushing my teeth I put the kettle on and make a cup of herbal tea. I return to my bedroom, push back the lace curtains, greet my garden, and sit in my floral chair by the window. I read a book as I sip my tea. Once I finish my tea, it’s time to make breakfast and fill my first water bottle for the day. The ritual of making tea and filling my water bottle are what start my hydration mindfulness each day.
But this morning I woke up to the text with the news of my aunt’s death - so I lingered in bed all morning thinking about her and intermittently playing a game on my phone and watching tv so as not to be alone with my thoughts. The house is empty today with my housemates either at work or home for the holidays and so the house felt especially still and quiet. Then, having long tired of television or games, but without the gumption to rise, I received a text from a friend inquiring about the water tracking app I’ve been using. Opening the app and seeing that it was after 11am and that I was at 0%, I felt my resolve to start my day rise up. I love my morning routine. I anticipate and look forward to it at the close of each day as I fall asleep. The inquiry from my friend reconnected the circuit to that enjoyment and roused me from my cocoon.
As I began my morning routine I considered the oddity of life after a death. My aunt is gone. Someone is missing and has left a hole in the world where they should be. She’s always been there, my whole life, and before my life began. She’s the first of my parent’s generation to leave us and a reminder that more of them will follow as time moves on. These are all of the things that I contemplated (or avoided thinking too much about) as I lingered in bed this morning. And yet… my body still needs to be cared for. She (my body) still needs me to go through my morning rituals to set myself up for a good day. She needs me to hydrate and feed her and to stretch out her sore, stiff muscles after a week of intense activity. There’s a cognitive dissonance there: the cosmos has shifted and someone is gone who shouldn’t be, and yet I still need to concern myself with the temporal business of brushing my teeth, making my cup of tea and other simple routines. But it’s these rituals that ground me and keep me from contemplating current and anticipated losses too hard, so really it’s a mercy that these acts of living must not be overlooked.
I don’t want to over-inflate my experience of losing my aunt. I come from a small extended family that’s not close. Each branch carefully keeps to itself. But still, in a family that’s scattered about and got together only sporadically throughout the years, this aunt was the one who loved me best. She always loved me well and showed me kindness when I saw her. She’s the one who taught me how to pet a dog (stroke them gently in the same direction as the fur). She had a beautiful smile and a warmth to her and you don’t have to see someone often or know them well to miss them all the same. I’m sad that she’s gone and that she suffered in her later years. I’m sad because fresh losses always stir up remembrances of previous losses. And I’m sad because her death is a reminder that the inevitable march of time will keep taking others in her generation away from us.
But I’m also grateful for friends who text with app inquiries, for cherished, simple morning routines, and for muscles that ask to be tended to and stretched out. I’m grateful for the cheerful faces of colorful pansies to greet me outside my window and for hot, herbal tea to warm my insides and whet my appetite for breakfast. While my thoughts may stray far into the cosmos today, I will tend to my body well, which will keep me grounded and prevent me from spinning off too far into the what-if thoughts of grief. Bodies certainly give us some real trouble sometimes, but they’re also faithful companions that keep us humble and rooted in the present moment. Today I’m finding myself deeply grateful for my embodied state and for being able to turn my focus towards my physical needs, which will crop up like clockwork all day long. Each prompt from my body is an invitation to a meditative practice, in the physical realm, to keep me from dwelling too much in the messier parts of my head.