Loss

“Limitless undying love, which shines around me like a million suns, it calls me, on and on, across the universe.” ~ Across the Universe, The Beatles

Last night at yoga we did a few stretches before we were called to the tops of our mats for the start of practice. Once there, the instructor asked us to set an intention.

I used to set an intention by making a wish, like a private prayer. But I’d struggle to come up with something quickly, and I couldn’t always get it done. So I started to simplify things, and now I just conjure up an image, usually one of someone I love, and then I wait to see what comes to mind.

Last night the image was my son, decked out for the swim portion of the New York City Triathlon. He was in his wet suit, wearing goggles and a bathing cap, mid-air in a feet-first jump into the Hudson River!

Only two days earlier I had witnessed this event, supporting him with family and friends as he swam and biked and ran in memory of a loved one whom he considers his brother. This young man had shared a life with my daughter, and when we lost him, so many plans were cut short, including the one he had made with my son to enter the triathlon.

Loss is a complicated thing, and when it takes us by surprise, as this one did, there’s never a plan for it. Yet that’s what loss seems to beg for most. It begs for plans that no one wants to make, plans that no longer include the one we’ve lost but that still remain very much about him. 

For my son the triathlon was one of those plans, so he designed a training regimen.

Since he had never been a big swimmer, he signed himself up for swim classes for triathletes. The only one to show up in board shorts and winded after just a few laps, it would take several months and a Speedo to build up the skills and stamina necessary to swim in open water.

He mapped out routes to run and ride around New York, reporting home with photos and updates from all over the city.

He kept up his yoga schedule and did his circuit training. He ate as clean as he could.

And then he selected a charity in the name of this young man, so that others who wanted to support him could also become part of his plan.

And he respectfully asked the family of the one we lost whether they’d mind if he rode the red bicycle that had belonged to their son, the one that had hung in the home he and my daughter had shared. And the family graciously agreed, because they, too, were part of the plan.

My son did all of this on his own, for that’s the other thing about loss. It’s personal, and so even when it’s shared, it’s yours in a way that’s not anyone else’s. It leaves you on your own to cope in ways that only you can.

And the way for my son proved to be the triathlon. He had set his own intention, and that’s what I think I was witnessing when he jumped into the Hudson.

Each person is on his own in this race of individual endeavors that include swimming, biking and running. These activities are not done holding hands. There are no teammates. Even the training is individualized, and so are the results. Everyone participating would be receiving his own finishing times for each section of the race and also for the transitions in between. 

We cheered him on as he swam steadily for 1500 meters, or nearly 20 blocks in New York City measurements. We hollered as he came out of the water in a sprint toward the transition area, where we then lost sight of him for a few minutes while he readied himself on the bike. Then he came out of the gate and pedaled away, as we cheered him again and held up our signs. And then, while he rode for the next 25 miles, our group made its way to a place he’d earlier scouted out, a spot outside a café where we’d line up to watch him run by.    

And as I stood there waiting for my son, a familiar feeling came over me. It was the one that I have at the end of my yoga classes, when I realize I’ve just done something on my own with others who have done the same. At the end of the practice, my individual effort suddenly feels like a shared effort, and my heart fills with love for everyone in the room, even for those I don’t know.

Maybe this is why the instructor asks us to thank the people practicing next to us when we’re done. It brings home the fact that none of us are in it alone.

And so I found myself clapping and cheering for those I didn’t know, because outside of that café my heart had filled like it does at yoga. I recognized the shared effort among the runners, even though I’m sure they had each set their own intentions when they jumped into the Hudson at the start of the race.

There were almost 3,500 triathletes and just as many or more spectators, and standing there I loved them all! Suddenly, my son ran by, and I reached up with the others to give him his high five. He was grinning and feeling good, and I wondered if maybe he could feel it, too, that feeling that he wasn’t in it alone.   

At the time of our loss and since, I’ve been struck by the overwhelming amount of love and support that’s come our way. In the aloneness of our grief, we’ve been touched by so many others who have generously reached out from every single part of our lives from as far back as I can remember. And this is what stays with me, and it’s what I was reminded of as I watched the race and experienced the shared spirit and universal love that made everyone there a part of the plan.

We saw my son again near the finish line. He sprinted home on his own and brought every one of us along with him. And then we didn’t leave! All of us spent the rest of the day together, sharing food and drink and laughter, and some of us even shed some tears.

Later that evening I asked my son what he had thought about during the race. For me the race had been quick, but for him it had lasted two hours, 47 minutes and 10 seconds! I imagined that was enough time for a triathlete to think. And he told me that, in addition to this and in addition to that, what had come to mind was the one we had lost, and that he had thought about him the whole time.

Jeff Bart and Ben Samit planned to do the New York City Triathlon together. To make a donation in Jeff’s memory, please visit Ben's link here. All donations go to St. Jude Children’s Hospital. 

Anne is the author of Unfold Your Mat, Unfold Yourself. Connect with her on her blog, Facebook and Twitter.

Hunger

Ben Samit completing a triathlon swim.

“Bring all the lovers to the fold, ‘cause no one is gonna lose their soul.” ~ Love Is My Religion, Ziggy Marley

We’ve been studying the soul.

We’ve been reading books and taking classes and looking for one soul, in particular. He belonged to my daughter and left without warning, leaving us all at a loss. He was the one who fed her soul, so that she was never hungry, and now her plate is empty, and she has no appetite.

He was a loving young man who knew that his body could feed his soul. He was a runner and a biker who had completed marathons and bike races. He loved to dance and had just started practicing yoga. He often worked out with my son, and together they had talked about entering a triathlon.

From the books and our classes, we are learning that certain souls are tied together in what are called “soul contracts”. Supposedly, we make these contracts before we are born. So the people in our lives, those we love and even those we don’t, are here with us because we’ve previously agreed upon it. It’s not anything we may ever remember, but it may be something we already know.

This is why we regard the soul of the one who left us as a brother to my son. His name was Jeffrey Paul Bart.

After he left, my son called me.

“Hey, Ma,” he said. “I’m going to enter the New York City Triathlon!”

I should not have been surprised. My son had once thought it would be a good idea to run up the steps of the Empire State Building! It was a vertical race. I never knew there were such things, but I’ve since learned that they happen all around the world. They’re called run-ups. The sign-up for the run-up was closed, but my son had entered a lottery and somehow gotten himself a late spot. He called to let me know.

“Hey, Ma,” he said over the phone. “I’m going to run up the Empire State Building!”

We hung up, and I looked it up. I’d never even taken the elevator up, much less the steps, but apparently the Empire State building had a lot. There were 86 floors and 1,576 steps!

He started to watch online videos. Apparently, a champion vertical racer had posted videos on how best to run up the steps. There were instructions on how to grab the railings and how to swing around to the next flight. My son gave me his own instructions. I was to watch the videos, too, so that I could listen intelligently as he mapped out his strategies.

He picked a charity for those who wanted to support him and ran up the stairwells of his apartment building as practice. His doorman was in charge of the stopwatch. He conditioned further with lots of yoga.

A few short months later, he ran to the top of the Empire State Building! 

Really, I don’t know what made him decide to do that. I don’t even know if he knows. I just think he knew that he had to do it, and so he did. If I think hard enough about it, I would say that, on some level, he knew that his body, too, had the ability to feed his soul, and that his soul was hungry.

Swimming is a big part of a triathlon. In fact, it’s the very first part, and my son was never really a big swimmer. When he was little, he was so little that it took some time before he had the strength to hold his chest high enough to keep his head above water. And so it was a while before he could, and then it was never really an activity he actively pursued.  

My son began to put his plans in place for the race. He registered for the NYC TRI and signed up for a swim class. Then he chose a charity in memory of his brother Bart and bought a bike map of the city, so he would know where to go. He started running, too, and he further conditioned with lots of yoga.

I listened as he mapped out his strategies, and for months I watched as he fed his soul in the way that he knows how. He met with a run coach and sent me videos from his swim coach. He worked out his workout on either end of his work day, in the mornings and in the evenings and on the weekends, too.

The training provided my son with a purpose at a time when he was looking for his. The loss of a loved one can leave us questioning ours, and that’s why we want so badly to believe in our souls. We want to believe there’s a reason we’re here and a purpose in the company we keep. We want to know that it matters when we love someone and that our contracts with them are for keeps.

There was so much more to be done. My son acquired a wet suit and goggles and a bathing cap, and then he arranged for the bike and the shorts and the shoes. He actually borrowed the bike that inspired him to enter the race, the red one that hung in his soul brother’s place, in the home that my daughter had shared. He learned the gears and met with the guys at the shop to learn even more, and he spoke with his brother as he rode through the city of New York.  

“Bart and I rode the streets hard,” he reported one day. “We cursed up a storm,” he said of the cars and the people who got in the way.     

And then it was time for a practice race, and his sister and I were invited along. He had signed up for a nearby triathlon in a town outside the city. He packed up his car with the bike and his things, and we booked a hotel overnight. The next morning, we were up before dawn, and we drove to the beach where he put his wet suit on.

He entered the water and swam out with the others until they became dots in the distance, blue like the color of their caps. We watched the blue dots move along the horizon and then turn toward the shore before they rose up to become people again. And we clapped for him as he came out of the sea and ran by on the beach and transitioned to the ride on his bike.

But then another rider collided with him, and he and the bike were down before they could even begin! And I have to admit that I heard him curse as he got up from the ground and fixed up the bike and then pedaled off, as if it had never happened. And we cheered him on then and did the same again as he rounded the bend in a second and final loop.   

And then it was time for the run. He stashed his bike and put on his watch as he ran, and then he was gone again. And that’s when my daughter and I walked to the finish line, so that we could greet him when he came in. And it was not too much longer before we saw him appear, a dot in the distance again. And then we heard his name in the air as he drew near, and we clapped and hollered and cheered.

“Here comes a runner with some real grit!” the announcer announced over the loud speaker. “There’s no one behind him right now. There he is! Ben Samit from New York, New York, New York!”

      

He blew by the finish line, and suddenly he was with us, catching his breath, elated, a little bloody from the spill on his bike. He gave us big, sweaty hugs, and we took celebratory pictures in the rising sun, and then we listened as he told us what it was like.

He said the bike ride was good, and that he still had gas in the tank after the run. But the swim, he said, was not good at all.

Although I hadn’t noticed, he told us he had entered the water but was unable to exhale his air. He wasn’t prepared for the cold temperatures and lack of visibility, and he froze right there on the spot. He almost turned back but made the decision instead to move on ahead and swim with his eyes above water. It wasn’t until the end when he headed to shore that he finally put his head in for the rest of the swim.

“Bart was definitely with me in the water,” he said.

We took so many photos of that day, but they don’t do justice to the image that remains in my mind. In the mental picture I keep, I see my son from behind. He’s in his wet suit and goggles and cap, and he’s moving into the water at the start of the race.

The day has dawned, and it freezes this moment in time. He’s hungry and ready to feed his soul.

Next up: The NYC TRI.

Jeff Bart and Ben Samit planned to do the New York City Triathlon together. To support Ben’s race in Jeff’s memory, click here. All donations go to St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

Anne is the author of Unfold Your Mat, Unfold Yourself. Connect with her on her blog, Facebook.and Twitter.

Adventure

My son, Ben, skydiving in Australia

“So come out of your cave walking on your hands and see the world from upside down.” ~ The Cave, Mumford and Sons

The other night, I was at yoga, laying out my mat, unwinding it from its bag and doing the same from my day. I prefer a spot against the wall, where I can try a few handstands without going overboard. I walk along my mat and talk with those nearby, enjoying the switch from my work day to my yoga night, chatting and pacing and popping into handstands. 

And I wonder, where else, really, would this seem normal? 

Aside from my Instagram friend who sneaks photos in her office attire when no one’s around, putting up pictures of handstands by a file cabinet or backbends atop a conference table, I’m not sure I know anywhere else I could chat while upside down without anyone wondering what’s wrong with me. 

I’ve come to realize that I feel the most like myself when I’m at yoga. It’s nice here, more than nice. There is a freedom once I park my car and walk to the studio, as if I am leaving one life and showing up at another.  

And this transition has been a huge adventure for someone like me, someone who doesn’t love change and who takes comfort in sameness. 

It’s not that I’m not who I am outside of yoga. It’s pretty hard to be anyone else, anyway. It’s just that on my mat, I feel the closest to me and to the girl I was so long ago.  

On my mat, it just is what it is, a phrase I usually hate to hear. It’s the phrase I come up against when no amount of justifying or explaining can make things how I’d rather they be. It’s the phrase that speaks the truth, and that’s what I get on my mat. 

It is what it is on the mat because it’s pretty bare there, and so am I. Even what I wear is bare, my shoulders, sometimes my midriff and even my feet. Once there, I put up my hair, which for me is a fairly personal thing. Off my mat and outside the house, my hair is always down and done. 

The yogi seated to my right looks up at me as if we’d been in conversation and exclaims, Wouldn’t that be amazing? 

What? I ask, realizing that she thinks I’ve overheard the yogi on her other side. 

To have the kind of job that can take you anywhere? she answers. Where you get to go anywhere?  

No! I say immediately back. I’m a homebody, I admit from my mat, coming down from a handstand against the comfort of the wall. I don’t want to go all over the place! Coming here is my big adventure! 

But then I sit down to ask this young girl where her job takes her and find that she has just returned from months studying dolphins in Australia. And from my perch on my mat, I am indeed amazed.  

My yogi friends are big adventurers. To me, it seems they are scared of nothing. I love to hear what they do and where they’ve been. They are young and brave and adventurous, and I’m doing my best to learn from them.   

I am on the road back from something, an adventure that had been chaotic and challenging. I had been young and brave and adventurous then, and I think that’s what helped me through. It’s just that I thought the objective was to find peace and safety, kind of like the spot against the wall where I can’t fall over if I go upside down.  

The classes I take are pretty powerful, and maybe that’s why I’ve met so many adventurous people, those that run and bike and ski and more, those that are not necessarily looking for peace or safety. And when I wonder what I’m doing here among them, I think back to when I was young and brave and adventurous, too. 

Maybe I am trying to find that girl again.

One yogi friend runs to yoga, takes the class and runs home. She was there throughout her pregnancy and was always one of the few who could hold the backbends through all the counts. Another yogi is an avid skier who just spent a recent afternoon on a trampoline. And there’s the man who completed 20 years in the military who hopes to teach as part of Yoga for Wounded Warriors.  

My son’s a yogi, and he’s jumped out of an airplane. Yet another yogi biked to the beach, more than 100 miles away, to raise money for Autism. Still another friend hails from across the globe, having spent the past year teaching yoga in the States and just this week returns to her country for yet another brave beginning. 

And how can I not mention the young woman who spent many years as a platform diver, studied in faraway places and is recovering from a knee injury received while cliff diving. She is forever my example of grace and strength and determination as she maintains her practice, her work and her indomitable spirit while healing.  

Homework!

That night’s practice is intense, and I am glad to reach the end when it’s time for inversions. As before, I pop into a handstand, secured by the wall behind me.  

After balancing a bit, I lower my legs and stand up for a breather. I face the wall, thinking about how much I like this part of the practice, with the room dark, the music playing and everyone upside down. 

A tap on my shoulder catches me by surprise, and someone’s hands spin me out of my reverie. It is the instructor, making me face front, away from the wall.  

It’s just so seamless at this point, she says. No more wall for you. Hope you don’t mind and hope you had fun there, because you’re done with that.  

She stands there and, under unspoken instructions, I place my palms on the mat and lift my legs into a handstand away from the wall. Each time I wobble, I feel the instructor point my core back to where it should be, so I can be upside down but still stable. 

And just like that, I am set on a course for a new adventure, joining the ranks of those around me and getting that much closer to the girl who had been there once before.

My Son

“Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy …” ~ John Lennon 

I’ve learned that we never stop growing up, but I have a son who I keep thinking is all grown up.

Or, so it seems to me. 

I guess I think he is all grown up because it’s hard for me to find anything that I can still do for him or that he needs me still to do. As a young adult, he lives on his own in another city and has a job and supports himself. 

When he was little, I’d pack his lunch, hold his hand, buy his clothes, play endless catch, sit on the sporting sidelines, keep him dry in the rain, and tuck him in at night. 

Now, he does all that and more on his own, and I’m certainly not the one tucking him in at night. 

When he was born, I felt an immediate kinship, as if on the inside, he was me and I was him, a symbiosis from day one. And it’s like he knew this, too. As a baby, I would hold him and pat his back, and his little hand would pat my back right back as if to say, I know, Ma. 

As a single mom raising this boy, I learned so much about myself. I found myself in this boy who would color and draw and then oil his baseball glove and break it in each night under his mattress; who would lay his head on my shoulder and then put on his hockey gear and skates; who would tell me he loved me but make me promise to lay low on the soccer sidelines; who would give me play-by-plays of tennis matches but ask me to wait in the car at practice; who would blast his music but still listen to mine. 

As he grew up, I had to learn how to make space to respect his, so we could remain simpatico, so I could still come along for the ride that is his life. 

It did not surprise me that soon after I took up yoga, he did, too. First, in college, to fulfill some credits, and then more so as he started to work. 

And now, when I visit him or he comes home, it’s what we do. 

The other day, we placed our mats alongside each other to practice at a new studio. Here, the instructor blasted the music at an extra high volume each time we held a pose or worked a handstand. And each time, it would be one of my favorite tunes from way back when, and my son would look over at me and grin and nod, I know, Ma. 

And even though he is what I consider all grown up, he doesn’t mind my reaching out to pat him in the middle of the practice and, sometimes, he even pats me right back. 

We do yoga. We get juice. We go to lunch. We even shop. He holds my hand as he walks me around the city from here to there throughout the day. And, later, I hear from his sister that he loves when I visit, because he says I can just fold right into whatever it is they do.  

And I’m grateful for this. For the closeness and for the space that makes for it. 
 

And I am surprised to see myself again now, in this grown up young man. We have pictures from these recent days, when I can see myself in him. I am somehow appearing in this young man who looks like his dad and his uncle, and not just in pictures but in how we think and in what we say, sometimes in the same words and at the same time. 

And when our practice is over, we sit up and, together, we say Namaste. And I am filled up with such gratefulness to have practiced with my boy, feeling so blessed that he is there, that I am still able to pat his back and get one back. 

The next day, he invites me to an appointment. We are to meet there, but it’s raining, and he texts me that he’ll pick me up with the umbrella, and I realize that this day, he’s the one keeping me dry in the rain. 

Before this trip, my son was home for a visit. He was looking around at several things from years past and said that some of it made him feel bad. As with everyone who grows up, there are things left behind that would rather be forgotten. I know this is true of me; how can it not be true for him? 

In yoga, one of the things we are taught is that it’s okay to let go, that we don’t have to hang onto everything that brought us to where we are now. 

So I make a promise that on his next trip home, we will purge the old stuff and lighten the load. 

It made me think back to the end of a practice, months earlier. I had turned my mat to the wall, facing a new direction by the end of class. It was hot. I was wrung out. The practice had done its magic before the instructor added some of his own. 

Letting go is not a loss, the instructor said, his words like a wand sweeping across the room. I felt him grant me the same permission I wanted to grant my son.  

It’s not a lessening. Letting go, he said, actually makes room for abundance. 

This winter, my son went snowboarding, an annual activity that kind of scares me. On some such trips, I ask him to please just send a signal that he’s breathing. I figure that makes for space because I don’t need a phone call; instead, just a short text will do. 

This time, the message reads: Alive and well and it comes with a picture. He is in a headstand atop a snowy mountain, sending a signal loud and clear. 

He might as well have just sent the words, I know, Ma.