I have a confession to make. Today I spent quite a lot of my yoga class looking up.... I couldnt help it. Any time I could lift my gaze without falling over, I looked up through square windows in the roof out onto the blue sky. Every few minutes the sun would shine brightly through, making an already bright room even brighter. I couldnt help it. I looked up.
And as I looked up I was thinking about one of the happiest days of my life... the morning Noah and Cara were born. You see... the yoga instructor today is the daughter of the pediatrician who was in the operating room that day, and the man who I have always believed saved Noah's life. Like Matt, this man was also taken from us way too soon. And so two of the people who were in the room on that day are no longer here... and yet I think of them both often. This morning made me think again about memories. What we remember and what we forget. I'll always remember that day my kids were born of course. I'll remember how the alarm clock woke us with the song "you are so beautiful" playing. I'll remember the way the pediatrician spoke to us gently in a soft voice. I'll remember seeing my beautiful babies in teenie tiny beanies under bubble wrapping to keep them warm. I'll remember the look on Matts face as we had our first family photo just a few moments after their birth. But what of the things I wont remember? What of the memories Ive already forgotten? When I look back am I distorting what was our reality because there's noone else to confirm it? Am I making the memories brighter than they were... or darker? What of the memories of our life that he held for us, that I let go of because I knew they were in his keeping? I wish we could one day be old together arguing over whether it was Amalfi or Positano where we had a room with a view of the side of a cliff. Fifteen years of memories that only he and I shared... The memories of a marriage that nobody else will ever know. It feels like a moment ago he was here, and a lifetime ago that he left. And in between there are the three years I've had on my own. Three years of memories Ive made without him. And here's the real confession..... Some of these memories are, almost absurdly, the happiest memories of my life. I argue with myself... How is that possible? But I have to acknowledge it is true. Because this shadowy hole that sits in my heart without him, a gaping hole which draws me deep down into the depths some days and makes it hard to even breathe... somehow this hole is what has forced me to look up and see the world, and all its possibilities, through new eyes. And for that I honestly couldn't be more grateful.
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My husband, Matt, died suddenly four days before our 12th wedding anniversary when he was 39.
That was three years ago, and this year I decided to spend the third anniversary of this “day” walking at what is known as the “1000 steps” in the Dandenongs in Melbourne, Australia. As I arrived, I noticed only a few cars in the car park which surprised me. I thought there would be lots of people here on such a gorgeous sunny day. I parked and walked through to the start of the trail…. and noticed the steps went down…. I had always expected the trail to start with steps leading up. Down I went…. 776 steps down…. (apparently there’s only 776 which kind of bugs this data nerd but anyway)… As I walked, lots of people passed me going the other way. I was a bit confused. I finally got to the bottom and noticed a large car park filled with cars. Apparently my car’s GPS had led me to the wrong end of the track and I’d actually gone down when I “should” have gone up and gone up when I “should” have gone down. Expectations.I expected to start the track by going up…It went down. I expected my life to go a certain way… It hasn’t. Expectations.As I walked, I was thinking of my wedding day. There are two enduring memories I have of that day. The first is the staircase I walked down, my version of the aisle. The second is that it rained, poured actually, until about half an hour before the outdoor ceremony which I had stubbornly refused to even countenance moving indoors. I spent much of the morning of my wedding day looking up, checking the dark clouds, and as I walked down the stairs I remember the sun was shining so brightly that I had to squint. It was so much more beautiful – and memorable – for being so unexpected. Expectations.I thought I’d learned the lesson about not being able to control things on the day I got married. It took me another 11 years and 360 days to learn it properly. That sometimes the unexpected can bring joy; and sometimes it can bring pain, but either way what you expect very rarely turns out to be what actually happens. Expectations.I expected this year’s third anniversary days – wedding anniversaries, death anniversaries, birthdays – to be easier than last years. But they were harder… maybe because of the expectation itself. I expected to be “more ok”, and I was knocked for a six when I realised I was not. When I finally got back to the top of the steps and made my way back to the car I remembered a quote I love. There’s no elevator to success; you have to take the stairs. I believe that. I believe professional success is born out of tenacity and persistence and keeping on going even when it feels like a hundred walls have been put in front of you. But I wonder if there is also no elevator to happiness. No shortcuts or automated processes which can take you, effortlessly, in one straight line upwards. That happiness, like success, is also at the top of a peak whose steps must be climbed. Each step, both the shallow narrow ones and the deep ones which require several mini steps to climb, takes you closer to the top. It’s hard, especially if you are unfit for the challenge having never climbed something like it before. Some days it feels like the oxygen is too thin, that you can neither breathe in nor breathe out, so you just have to hold your breath for a little while. But I wonder if the worst thing you can do to yourself is to have expectations about the climb itself…. Because sometimes the climb goes up, and sometimes it goes down, and both lead you to new discoveries. Expectations.I walked down the steps on my wedding day to get to Matt and the long future I expected we would have together, but I walked up the steps on my wedding anniversary this year to go home to my kids. And the only expectation I have now is of something I can absolutely control – that I should never deny how I feel, but I can always control how I think. And I’ll always be grateful. |
AuthorFiona is a writer, consultant to government and not for profits and former cynic turned yogi. Archives
June 2017
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