Finding the Ground

I stand beside my beautiful black mare Lily. 

We are in a large field surrounded by maple and ash trees.  It is early winter. It is cold. The ground is covered with a fresh blanket of snow. She is breathing slowly as horses do when they are relaxed.  Her exhalations produce soft fog around her nostrils.  The fog turns to frost as it falls on her black muzzle. The frost sparkles as it rests on her whiskers.

  I have come out here to ground myself. This is something I have instinctively done for years. It requires no thought. I go to the horses. I go to nature. I just go. My body guides me this way.  It always has.

 She is standing there, holding space for me as I breathe with her. My breath relaxes. I feel my heart rate slow as I continue to breathe.  A horse’s heart beats much slower than humans. I start to feel her. I feel her heart. It is like her heart is beating in my chest.  I continue to relax. I breathe.  My breath is matching hers.  She softens her eye and lowers her head. 

We are connected.

I am enveloped in her soft yet powerful energy.

 After my mom’s funeral 11 years ago, I brought a chair out to the middle of our field and sat with the horses.  My mom’s death happened very quickly after her cancer diagnosis.  One morning I was arranging palliative care. That afternoon, she died.  I was not prepared for it. It was a big shock.  I had no time to grieve and immediately went into organization mode.  I am the oldest and felt this was my responsibility. I buried myself in the details, partly because this was expected of me but also because I did not want to deal with the grief.  Once the funeral was done and the family and guests had returned to their homes I was left with my thoughts. 

I found myself waking up the morning after the funeral feeling such grief in my body.  My body took over.  Still in my pajamas, I got up, grabbed a chair and went outside to the horse pasture. I found a flat spot to put the chair down. I sat.  The horses were quietly grazing.

 I let out a sigh.

I start to cry.

 My big gelding Quinn is the first to notice me. He ambles over as I continued to sob.  He lowers his head and sniffs my feet. He tries to get my sandal off.  As a safety conscious horse person, I thought “oops, I am not wearing appropriate footwear.”  At that moment it didn’t matter, and I didn’t care. I let him play with the tip of my sandal. He grabs it with his mouth, pulls and it comes off. I start to smile amidst the tears. He is such a playful horse.  He picks it up again, shakes it and throws it.  I laugh.  I immediately feel better.  I am laughing amidst the tears.

 Today I have come out and it is my mare Lily that greets me. She knows I am coming. Her head is up. She is alert.  She is slowly walking towards me. My anxiety is through the roof. I feel it vibrating in my chest.  She senses this, she knows.

 I have just found out that our youngest son is homeless again. He is addicted to meth and has been living on and off the streets for a few years. I had not heard directly from him in about 2 years. Indirectly I had received tidbits of information from either police, hospitals or street outreach people. I knew he was alive and was accessing shelter services. I was hopeful that he had housing or better yet maybe he was in rehab. In some ways no news was good news.

That was how I coped.

 After 10 years of what I call “a mother’s hell”, I stopped trying to rescue him. Rescuing only led to enabling, codependence and inevitably, emotional abuse.   It also resulted in a lot of drinking on my part. It was always the same movie.  I had seen it many times. The ending did not change. Intellectually I knew that.  The problem is the head is far away from the heart. 

 My head rushes back to when we adopted him and his brother. They were 3 and 18 months, perfect ages.  We were ecstatic to be parents. They appeared to be happy, healthy toddlers despite their bumpy start to life.  Our social worker told us that they had not experienced any major trauma. There was some neglect but no physical or sexual abuse.   They had been in a stable foster home for a year.  They were developmentally where they were supposed to be for their ages. They were healthy. A loving nurturing family was all that was needed.  We had gone through an arduous home study process and were approved to be parents. I recall our social worker being excited for us to be their parents. She kept saying to us,” I can’t wait for them to go to their new home”. We were told at their young ages they would adjust well.  We believed them.

 I replay the movie of their childhood with us in my head.

What did we miss? I thought we had a beautiful family life. It felt so complete, joyous, and full of love. I have happy recollections of them collecting eggs, bottle feeding lambs, exploring the woods, and playing with puppies. There were hockey games, horseback riding, music lessons, family gatherings, and fishing in the river.  Nothing is perfect and there were difficult times.  I travelled with my job. This put added stress on my husband. There were issues at school, injuries, and a few trips to the hospital. In our minds they lacked nothing, and we were always “there”.

 One of those difficult times was when our youngest son was 4. We were in our farmhouse and for some reason the basement door was open.  There was a little yellow toy tractor sitting on a stair about halfway down. I still don’t know how it got there or why the basement door was open. The stairs were narrow and steep, so we always kept the door shut. We told the boys not to go there. He went there and started to walk down the stairs. Before I could get to him, he slipped. I watched helplessly as he fell to the bottom hitting his head. I will never forget that sound or the sight of the little tractor lying beside him.  I flew down the stairs to get him.  He was screaming.  I picked him up, consoling him as I navigated the stairs. Once upstairs I noticed his forehead was discoloured and swollen. This was not a little boo boo, he needs medical attention.

 My husband was away so I had little choice but to take both boys with me to the hospital.  I wrestled them into car seats and left, my youngest whimpering. Thankfully our local hospital was only 10 minutes away. When we got there, he started to vomit. They took him in right away and quickly made the decision that he needed pediatric medical attention. They wanted to send him via air ambulance to the Children’s Hospital.  They explained to me that I could not go with him. I started to panic.  All I wanted to do was to hold him, comfort him and be there.  I argued. He is too little. He needs his mom.  They told me there was no room.  I would have to meet them there.  I really had no choice. I stayed with him. I held his little hand. He was conscious and kept telling me his head and tummy hurt.  I said, “Don’t worry the doctors will make you better”. I told him he was going to ride in a helicopter. He smiled at that point. I explained why Mommy couldn’t go in the helicopter, that I would meet him there. He frowned a little but nodded.  I watched as they wheeled him out on a stretcher to the helipad. He looked so small.  Just as they were loading him in, his head popped up and he waved. I waved back.

My chest was tight, my stomach in knots, a lump in my throat as I watched the helicopter take off. I recall driving to the hospital, sobbing, and looking up to the sky to catch a glimpse of the helicopter. My oldest son in the back seat saying, “it will be okay mom”.

 My mind races back to the present moment.

The voice in my head is taking over. It is telling me, go find him, go get him, bring him home. What kind of mother leaves their child on the street?   What if he freezes to death, then what?

 It will be your fault. Could you live with yourself if that happened?  Not only that, but a frozen homeless person will also surely make the news. He has been in the news before where his name was published.  Do you remember that?  Do you remember the video that circulated?  Surely you remember all the well-meaning “friends” contacting you,” Is that YOUR son.”

  Remember the social media buzz not to mention the neighbours. Oh yes, the judgemental neighbours.  Remember the gossip about you as parents, comments like “the nut does not fall far from the tree”.

The voice says, “Can you imagine what it will be like if he freezes to death AND you have all the shame that you did nothing?” My father’s voice enters my head, “It is not your fault, you did everything you could. It is all in the genes.”

 My mind is racing, like a sinus wave up and down. It is telling me all sorts of stories.

My body is telling me something else. It is full of anxiety.

My gut is tossing and turning. My heart is buzzing.

My throat feels constricted.

I feel this ball of tension in my torso that wants to get out!

Lily sensing this is rubbing her muzzle along my arm like she wants to get my attention. I turn to her, the voice in my head fades. I look at her. I notice her beautiful brown eyes. They are soft, full of intention.  She is looking right through me.  The voice is now a whimper. I take a breath. The voice quiets.

I stop and feel into my body. I find my feet; I feel the ground through my winter boots. I sink into the snow. I feel the balls of my feet.  I feel my heels. I stretch my toes up. I set them down. My feet are firmly anchored to the ground like they are part of it.

I start to breathe with her. It is slow and methodical. My racing mind is calming.  The sinus wave is flattening. 

I tell myself these future thoughts are just stories. They have not happened; they are not true.  The thoughts of the past are just memories, nothing more.  Memories I need not be attached to. They can be let go. It no longer matters. What matters is right now, this moment.

Lily drops her head, her eyes are soft, she blows out. I feel her taking the tension out of my body.  I feel her heart beating with mine. She is helping me release. 
I let go.

I release the guilt and the shame. I let go of things I cannot fix. Tension is moving out of me. She takes it in, yawns, and blows out. She does not keep it either.

It is released into the universe
We are now one.

I feel safe, I release tears.

Lily holds space.