I got the simultaneous calls around 7:30 on the Saturday night before Easter – my brother’s girlfriend on my cell phone and my sister on the house phone. My brother, 40 years old, had died in his sleep of a heart attack. I remember being on the phone with my sister - she asked me what we should do – my mother didn’t know yet, his body was in center city Philadelphia. “What should we do?” This was a valid question which seemed as if it should have had a clear and simple answer, yet I felt as if I was shot up with Novocain and treading in an ocean of mud for about twenty minutes. When I could finally move it was as if my body was an unfamiliar block of wood and my mind a sluggish cousin to its usually nimble self.

In those first days, I clung to the words in the Bhagavad-Gita, “The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind (2:23).”  This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried. He is everlasting, all-pervading, unchangeable, immovable and eternally the same. (2:24).”  Suddenly these words had to be true. Before, I was willing to entertain other ideas – other realities. Now – it was unthinkable that I would never see Rick again – that his very unique being would disintegrate into nothingness. That we would never again be regaled with his snarky repartee tempered with big bear hugs.

As the days went on, my body never seemed to recover from that first shock. I tried to do some yoga poses, to meditate, but nights laced with insomnia and ever unfolding situations and responsibilities around tying up my brother’s affairs, pushed taking care of myself past the back-burner to falling behind the stove. It was “survival yoga” for me – doing a few poses when I could, just to get past the fast-encroaching physical pain. I’d forgotten what was like to not have a practice – how quickly your body can feel crushed under the weight of life especially when compounded with grief. At an intellectual level, I am somewhat at peace, yet my physical body has not yet received that message. It was a humbling moment when I realized that I’d lost the mind-body connection that I had clearly taken for granted as a long time yoga practitioner.

A part of me really didn’t want to do yoga – once the pain of taut muscles and ragged breath set in, it was easier to take some Arnica or have a glass of wine than to face what was happening to my body; to note the differences. Automatic yogic breathing had become a short intake and then a long sigh – a classic sign of grief. My hips are locked and my neck and shoulders feel under a vise. I realized that a part of me was shutting down to life; identifying with my brother, perhaps? How quickly things change! How fragile we are!

It has only been six weeks since my brother’s death - I wasn’t going to write an article this issue, but I do believe that it is as important to write from a space of struggle as one of realization and these words are just tumbling out. Right now, I have to use every bit of strength I have to face the mat – to face who I am in light of this event. I am taken aback by my weakness – frightened when I feel myself unable to function with clarity, despondent in a way I have only glimpsed in others.

Meditation came back first – the ability to come back to my breath, to concentrate on my mantra for a few minutes a day. I feel the subtle pull of light and thank God for this feeling. Now, I return to poses as if learning them for the first time – my hand goes here – my foot turns out in this manner. I try to allow my body to realize that we are still connected to what is true and real; that death is as the Gita states – a removal of the soul from worn-out clothing – that the forces which hold us together as beings on this plane rise and fall as waves on an ocean – that, oh, please God, we are not separate from that ocean.

----------Books that helped---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Didion, Joan.  The Year of Magical Thinking.  Vintage; Reprint Edition, 2007.

Hahn, Thich Nhat.  No Death, No Fear.  New York, New York:  Riverhead Books, 2003.

Newton, Michael.  Journey of Souls:  Case Studies of Life Between Lives.  St. Paul, MN:  Llewllyn Publications, 2003.