Beginning at the End

"I am happier than I've been in a really long time. It feels like the grip that 'fear'  has had over me for so many years is loosening. I can't imagine wanting my life to be at any different place than right now. I feel like I am finding peace and life has found it's flow. It feels really good!" 

~Personal Journal Entry, September14th, 2010

Over the last eight months I have often reflected back to the days between that journal entry and October 9, 2010. I sometimes wallow in how perfect life felt. Perfect for the first time since April of 2007. This very small sliver of time when I let my guard down, I let myself finally release the fear, the anxiety and the anticipation of 'waiting for the other shoe to drop'. Of course the other shoe wasn't going to drop! What could be left, I had run (literally and figuratively) through my middle son running away from home (for 10 days) and subsequently spending 15 months in various treatment programs in other states, another son who tried to commit suicide and he too spent time in wilderness therapy, the break up and make up of my current husband and the birth of my fourth son. During this time I collected therapist like an eight year old boy does baseball cards - individual, family, transitional, short-term, long-term. Really, hadn't I proved my resilience to the Universe for whatever it might have up it's sleeve? I met every challenge as an opportunity, to be a better parent and a better wife, and I had run and biked my way through all of. I ran full and half marathons, biked hundreds of miles and climbed mountains both literally and figuratively.

On Wednesday, October 6, 2010 we were leaving for Ft. Benning Georgia to see my oldest son Brandon graduate from Army Infantry Training. A decision long in the making for him and turns out something that fit him like a glove. I set out to get my run in before being on a plane all day. Only four and half miles, but living in the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains it included the typical climbs and descents. Life was perfect and during that run, when I approached a long screaming downhill section,  I conscientiously let go of the past and accepted that my hard work, tears, perseverance and diligence had been paid in full. Time to embrace the life I had worked so hard for. I turned for home and embraced the gradual climb knowing that life would still challenge me but that the hardest climbs were behind me, or so I thought.

Seventy two hours later after enjoying the bliss of my family and being engulfed by seeing how Brandon had blossomed into a confident, strong soldier, I was side swiped with such velocity my heart had no choice but to shatter into pieces . Brandon was dead. In the first hours after I heard those words my heart physically ached, the pain was sharp and intense and I could do nothing but be an active observer in the breaking of my own heart.  How could this be, he had just flown home with us twelve hours before. On the way home from the airport he asked to be dropped at his Dad's house so he could hang out with his step-brother. Still dressed in his uniform as we pulled up I asked if he wanted to change his clothes. No, he was so proud of being a US Infantryman he wanted to show off his uniform while out with his friends he hadn't seen in so long. I hugged him tight, with a bit of apprehension and told him I loved him. Then I turned to Shane, the step-brother and said, "Keep my baby safe tonight". In reply as he peeled away from Brandon's embrace he told me, "Of course, I love him like a brother!".

And so began, and continues, the longest most excruciating climb of my life. In four days it will be eight months since Brandon died. It has taken me this long to get to where I feel sharing my story and creating this blog will not only emotionally benefit me but, hopefully be of benefit to others as well. My career and personal life have been focused on the benefits of exercise. I have counseled cardiac rehab patients on how exercise can help them. I have trained for and ran the Boston Marathon. Yet, in the initial trauma of my grief exercise didn't have a place. I was completely emotionally unable to apply my own rhetoric in healing myself. Nothing in my Masters of Exercise Physiology program taught me how to rehabilitate a broken heart. I am writing the manual from scratch.

Like any injury the body sustains, a broken heart never heals back the same way. But I would like to believe I have some control over how it is put back together. That may be my only hope that again some day I can let go of waiting (again) for the other shoe to drop.