Grieving 101: Turbo Technology + Yoga

Yesterday, I heard John's voice.  No, not just in my dreams or in my broken mind.  I actually heard his voice.  I listened to a voicemail that was tucked in a sea of other voicemails that my iPhone won't let me delete.  For once, I'm eternally grateful for this technical hiccup.

Today, I opened Facebook to see a video of John doing the ALS Challenge back in August and nominating me.  I had never seen this video before, partly because I wasn't tagged in it, partly because I wasn't connected to the person who posted it and partly because I was out of country when it went live.

But today, I saw it.  I heard his raspy smoker's voice nominating me, his sister, to dump another bucket of ice cubes and frozen water over my head.

(I love being his sister.)

After Dad and Mum passed I couldn't look at photos of them, let alone listen to a voicemail or watch a video of them.  However, this time around I'm going to embrace our turbo technology and hope it helps me heal.   

My strategy is to go head to head with this grief.  I'm going to face it, head on.  I am not going to let it bully me into months of being a sloth, like I was after losing our parents.  

My little brother wouldn't want that.  And it's because of that I am going to will myself to do it differently.

I began this strategy yesterday by doing two things:  1) Listening to his voicemail message, twice and 2) By going to hot yoga class.  

In all honesty, I didn't have the energy to peel off my cozy clothes and step into yoga clothes (also known as cozy clothes), let alone leave my house.  But I told myself that even if I just sat in child's pose through class, I still had to do this.  I had to do something to banish the anxiety that has been sitting on my chest and wrapping it's long, wiry fingers around my throat since the 6am phone call informing me we lost John.

(Anxiety, if you don't already know, is a mean motherf*cker.)

So I went.  I was the quiet, sad looking girl in the back of the room willing herself through the 90 minute practice.  Yes, my eyes welled up in tears many times.  Yes, I almost passed out twice (insert child's pose here please).  Yes, I found myself in Savasana staring at the ceiling (not what you are supposed to do) wondering how it's possible I won't see John again.

Yes, that was me, the broken one in class.

When the instructor bid us farewell with "namaste" I crawled into standing position and post-class-hustled to my cubbie to collect my belongings.   The first thing I did was hit the button on my phone to see a photo of John and I (now my lock screen).   

As soon as I saw the image of his smiling face, I took my next step forward.

I'm going to use all these tech opportunities like other people use turbo shots of caffeine.  I'm going to let them boost me.  

I know it's what he expects of me (not some miserable version of his sister just scraping by).  

Bottom line: I am not in the business of letting my little brothers down.

So here I go…