Reflections of Loss, Pain, Love, and Hope

I lost my beloved husband, Stephen, one year ago today to leukemia. He had developed a rare form of AML in the spring of 2010 due to treatments he had received for Hodgkins Disease between 2000 and 2004.  I wanted to share some of my experiences from the past year as an offering to feelings of loss, pain, love, and hope in the wake of this tumultuous time in our yoga community.  It’s a bit lengthy, but the heart is vast...

The End – Kali Time
Treatments didn't work and Stephen was in and out of the hospital for most of January dealing with infections.  He made the decision in late January/early February to go under the care of hospice so that he could primarily be at home.  Even then there was a part of me that was in denial.  The hospice social worker had this overly sympathetic way about her as if Stephen were about to go at any time.  She looked at me with sad, knowing eyes and asked how I was doing?  “I'm fine” – I couldn’t relate to her; I still had it in the back of my mind that we were going to find some other treatment to do and that "this" was not really happening.  I mean Stephen was walking around and seemed fine to outer appearances - you couldn't see that his bone marrow was not able to produce healthy cells.  Even as I was visiting different funeral homes and cemeteries to plan ahead, I just told myself that I needed to do this whether it was going to be two weeks or twenty years.  I think that I had to protect my heart so that I could still stay present to work, be a mom, and take care of life, otherwise I would have just collapsed.
 
My heart aches to think of his last days and how his body went through the process of breaking down.  It wasn’t until the very end that it became real - it was happening. I felt like I was helping him to birth back to the grand cosmos or wherever our souls return just as he helped me to birth our daughter. “Peace and relax” were the words that Stephen used for me during my birthing time and that was all that came to me to say to him.  I wanted him to know that it was ok to let go.  

There was the immediate pain of the loss, but then there was just numbness – a blur of people and cards and sympathies.  I was able to attend some workshops with John in Michigan.  He talked about opening the curtains and letting the light in.  I tried, but it was too much, too overwhelming, like Arjuna when Krishna reveals all of himself in the Gita.  I knew it was going to take a long time to open the blinds just a little bit.

After being surrounded in a cocoon of family for several weeks, I had to start my new reality, my new normal as a single working mom.  It was a very Kali time – dark with one cycle dissolved and the seeds of a new one yet to emerge.  It was confusing and scary, but also filled with new potentials – a life without a sick husband.

Feelings - Rasas

I haven’t journaled much through this year, but here are some words from 8/9/2011:

For the last week or so I have felt heavy - very heavy - like I was being weighed down with bricks.  Like I couldn't jump even if I wanted to because inertia was just too powerful.  It feels like a wet and earthy energy, descending, and filled with sadness.  Am I depressed?  Maybe somewhat, but why wouldn't I be?  I lost the love of my life, my hopes for a future as a family, a daddy for my daughter. 

"Daddy's in heaven?" says Annabella - "yes, Daddy's in heaven."  Usually she also says "Daddy loves you" with "you" really meaning "me" because that is often my response to her if she brings him up: "Daddy loves you Annabella" – I don’t know what else to say to her.  Today on the way to daycare she said "I love Daddy".  As I'm thinking of it, maybe there is a reciprocity going on - she has learned of being loved and now is able to offer it back.  This little girl amazes me every day - and pushes my patience every day.  Sometimes I wonder how I can do this - "this" being mostly raising Annabella by myself.

When do people have time to grieve?  I went to the doctor for the first time “since” and had to fill out the form and mark marital status - an unexpected dagger to the heart - "widow".  My doctor said that she talked to a grief counselor that deals mostly with parents that lose a child - unimaginable to me - and said that she finds that people are coming to her six months after a passing because there just isn't time to grieve. 

With Annabella’s second birthday and what would have been our twelfth wedding anniversary only a week apart from one another, I'm brought back to memories of the two happiest days we shared together.  Yes there is the love, but the feeling of loss makes my heart literally ache.  To realize that I will never see his physical form in person again is heart-wrenching.  To know that Annabella will not benefit from his patient parenting makes me want to scream.

So I tried to sit in meditation.  The heaviness helped anchor me to my seat, but I could not rise up.  I could not get beyond the heaviness.  I could not even just sit with it.

I know there is great love - divine love.  I have tasted it.  I have been blessed with love here - Stephen and Annabella - love from family and friends.  I know that it will help to lift me up and out of this heaviness.

I've known great depression before - despair - of not seeing any way out.  I think with age, our experiences help us to find that there are more places to look, more avenues of going from one place to another.  Even though I feel great sadness, I don't feel despair - I don't feel that there is no way out.  I trust in the way of love.  I trust that I can get through this.  I trust that the sadness is just an emotion - a vibration - a lower vibration than I've become accustomed to functioning with, but vibration of Supreme energy just the same.  I trust in the power of my yoga practice to sustain me.

I've also found myself getting more angry than usual.  I'm not an angry person, so I'm not used to dealing with this emotion.  I'm angry that I'm in this situation - of being a widow - of being a single mom of Stephen leaving me here.  I get so angry at my cat for meowing so much and so loudly.  I think she is just angry too.  She wants love and attention that I just can't give to her.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like now if Stephen had not gotten the leukemia.  I imagine that I would still be working and he would be staying home with Annabella - probably not able to work too much because she is so busy.  I imagine I might feel a bit resentful of him for being able to be with her - for me not being able to stay at home with her and teach more yoga.  Oh, I wish I could be resentful in that way now.  What we don't realize that we have.  So I try to be grateful every day for the gift of beauty that I have with Annabella and all other blessings in my life.

I do have to say that I would much rather Stephen's physical relationship with us end the way that it did verses him leaving us.  To have a dad out there that just doesn't want to be with you or to have a husband want to divorce you I'm sure would leave one with feeling like they were lacking in some way.  At least I have no doubt in my mind how much Stephen loved both of us.  Sometimes I feel like if he really loved us he would have fought harder - would have tried harder to find the best clinical trial - the best doctors.  But in the end, it was his time - whether really his time or just because on some level he decided it so. 

I find myself looking at things or dates and thinking, he was alive then, which of course, brings to my attention that he is no longer alive - my heart is in my throat.  Sometimes things are moving along just fine and then I'm stopped in my tracks.  I want to move forward, but then I find myself reluctant in some ways.  There are still things that I do with Annabella that he was a part of - like playing with some of her bath toys - we named the frog, "Froggie" and the monkey, "Marty".  But I know that someday these things will all be outgrown.  I hate the thought of moving forward with things that Stephen is not a part of, especially for Annabella.

I think of moving on with another relationship in my own life.  I want love.  I want perhaps another child.  I want Annabella to be part of a family.  I want her to have a good father-figure in her life.  But even if I were emotionally ready, which I'm not, for another relationship, how would I find the time?  I don't get to spend as much time with Annabella as I'd like already.  I can't even give the cat enough attention. 

Too much to even contemplate now - the relationship idea is definitely tabled for a while.

Sometimes I think that I just want to wallow in the sorrow - maybe not to wallow, but just to be with it.  It feels right on a certain level.  I think people want to medicate sadness away or avoid it, but to avoid it, just buries it deeper.  To let the sadness wash through feels cleansing on some level.  I think the trick is to not create stagnant ponds.  How to feel sadness without drowning?

I read something from Abraham Hicks today about creating a nucleus.  Something along the lines of our thoughts create a nucleus upon which things are attracted.  So I envision a thought as a seed and then like energy is attracted to that to create a larger sphere and it continues to grow.  So the more sadness, the more sadness grows and so forth.  So I am going to plant seeds of love.  I am going to plant them in my heart, in my mind, in my body, in my work, in my cooking, in my daughter.  I am going to grow and cultivate love in my life.  This was the message of Stephen - to love, love, love.  He was a great lover.  In the fertile soil of sadness, I will plant seeds of love, in hopes they will attract more love in my life - love for family, friends, the little things, life itself, myself, the Divine - maybe one day another love, but it's still too soon to open to that.

Over the year, I have been able to let some light in a bit at a time and to just feel.  I’ve had the feelings expressed above, but I have also been able to experience the love of family and friends in a new way.  You really see people's character in crisis - who is willing to step up for you.  I’m good at being strong, but have had to allow myself to be vulnerable as well.  I have had deep moments of joy in being with my daughter and to see her grow this past year. There has been an ebb and flow of the full spectrum of emotions.  

Peace and Love
It doesn't seem possible that a year has passed, but time does not stand still, as much as I have wished it on many occasions.  My heart still aches, but I find peace in knowing that he doesn't suffer.  The night after he passed, I was rocking our daughter to sleep and she said "daddy", then paused and said "better".  He is better. I just try to remember, feel, and hold the love in my heart for that is what Stephen truly embodied - love.  

A great teaching of Bill Mahoney from his teachings on The Bhakti Sutras on Yogaglo: love is timeless, it is immortal, undying - when there is an intense love for a cherished one and when there is a passing and the object of the beloved is no longer with us, the love remains, it does not die, it lives on.  And so it lives on in my heart.  I will always have pain in my heart for losing Stephen, but I will always have the love and I step into the new day with the belief that even after this, life is still good.  The experiences have taken me deeper into my heart.  I have not fully processed it all – that may take a lifetime – but I will not let this take me down, I will rise up even brighter and stronger.

Anusara Not Flowing
As all of the Anusara controversy has arisen, it has felt like the one thing that was steady for me in the time of many upheavals in my life was shaken.  I came to yoga, or really yoga came to me, shortly before Stephen got sick the very first time in 2000 and it totally shifted how I view the world and how I process and respond to life.  Where previously I may have dealt with the trials of life in self-destructive ways, like so many of you, the practice of yoga, especially Anusara yoga, has helped me to turn obstacles into opportunities for growth.

I think I always wanted to be closer in with John - wanted his recognition and approval - wanted to be more in the know, but as more has been revealed over the last few weeks, I'm glad that I was not.  At first I was not only disheartened by the accusations against John, but that I knew there were people that had to have known what was going on and didn't do anything.  Nothing is cut and dry, however and it does seem that people were trying to call him on his behavior, but were being shut out.  I feel a bit foolish that I did not know more about how the organization for which I worked so hard to become certified for was structured.  I even talked to Wendy and Sharon at the Anusara office once about concerns over the license agreement, and even though it made me a bit uncomfortable, I signed it anyway because I figured everyone else did (side-note for more self-examination).
 
Yoga is about the yoking of ourselves for an efficacious purpose – how we and what we choose to come into relationship to in ways that affirm and uplift life – skillful ways of aligning. I do not condone or align with John's actions or with the business structure of Anusara, Inc.  I do not align with his decision to teach in Miami and I do not believe he has told us everything.  I do not align with how he has treated many of his senior teachers and staff and how he has responded in the wake of the allegations.  I do align, however, with the methodology of Anusara yoga and the three aspects of Anusara yoga are beyond John.  John is human – he has offered so much to the yoga world.  I see his real gift is in organizing existing information in a way that is meaningful and coherent for many people, but his teachings are really from deeper truths that are beyond him and still hold true.  I decided when Stephen passed that I would not make any major life decisions for at least a year.  I do not feel a rush to make a decision at this point about my affiliation with Anusara and I will remain for now in hopes that John will follow his word and step aside to heal and to allow for a restructure of the organization.  If he doesn’t, then I can re-evaluate.
 
I have never felt more a part of Anusara as now as the conversation has deepened.  I have found myself being able to relate to so many of the FB posts and blogs and am grateful for all of the voices in helping me to see different perspectives and find more understanding for what has happened.  There has been great poetry of word and heart expressed.  It has been great to hear from many of my teachers, from many that I have met from events, from many that I recognize from events, and from many that I am just now meeting.  I give blessings to those that stay and blessings to those that go, for each has to do the best with where their heart leads.  But let’s leave the conversations open – it doesn’t have to be us and them.    
 
In the past year, I have spoken with several people that have gone through divorce and have been somewhat guiltily grateful that my relationship ended through death rather than divorce.  It makes the love feel more pure and true instead of bitter feelings, even though there were plenty of things about Stephen that drove me crazy.  I get to just focus on the good.  If John had passed away, we would be celebrating him and holding Anusara together and I doubt that many of the allegations would have come to light.  But as we are here in this divorce scenario, it isn't pretty and we won't be brushing the bad behavior away and only remembering the good.  The family is fractured, hearts are broken, people’s whole worlds have been shaken.

John has created great hurt to himself, the community, and Anusara.  He has fallen a long way down.  I think of this idea of divorce again.  Is Anusara something we married into or were we born into it?  It’s easier to walk away from a spouse than a sibling in some ways.  The sibling will always be your family.  If they fall and hurt you, do you just walk away?  Or do you stay and offer compassion and space for the person to heal to give them opportunities to redeem themselves?  The kula is the family that we choose and of course, we have the opportunity to change our decisions, but do we run so quickly when a family member has faltered?  I do not mean for these to sound like judgments for those that have left, it is just part of my thought process now.  We all have that point when there feels like there is no way to move forward in relationship in a way that can serve, and for those closest to John, this may be where things are.  In fact, if John is to step back and allow a restructure, it is likely because so many have stepped away.

Reflections
I would like to offer these reflections: You don't have to make a decision right now and if you do, you can change your mind later (either way) - Let yourself feel - It's ok to grieve the passing of the old and hold an excitement for new things to come – Your emotions will be a roller coaster sometimes, it’s ok, just ride the waves - Stay in contact with kula/support - Learn something from this – Look at why you do yoga – Look at why you committed to Anusara yoga – Look at how you respond to life when it becomes uncomfortable – Keep practicing yoga - Keep showing up to teach – Keep showing up for life – Things can always be worse, but they can always be better – Be open to the mystery, we don’t have to know how it will all work out - When all else fails, honor God and Love one another.

Thresholds of New Possibilities
Stephen gave me three Ganesha necklaces during the last year of his life – his way of telling me that it was time for a new start for me, it was time for a new awakening from the obstacles.  The first was given for our wedding anniversary in July with a ruby for the month, also our daughter’s birthstone.  The second was given for my birthday, with peridot, my birthstone.  The third, he had his mother give to me the night he passed, with turquoise for healing.  The note that he left said that he had kissed the Ganesha so that I could kiss it and our lips would have touched the same place.  As we stand at the threshold of new possibilities for our yoga community, may we step forward together, more empowered, not despite what has happened, but because it has elevated us to the next level.  Let’s be an example, a model, of the true power of yoga to cook and refine ourselves into something even better.

In the remembrance of tantra as the loom, we have woven ourselves together as kula from the threads of our hearts, bound through great love.  As the tapestry starts to unravel, new creations will be made - the same threads will connect in new ways, in new relationships, in new patterns – I look forward to the art that is yet to come as we weave our lives in offering to the highest. 

Saprema,
Laura Spriggs

Some of Stephen’s Writings

Stephen Spriggs, September 17, 1974 – February 22, 2011

Stephen’s Five Life Lessons (paraphrased by me)

Life Lesson #1:     Your family’s #1 job is to keep you safe (watch out for one another)

Life Lesson #2:     The Golden Rule – treat others as you would like to be treated

Life Lesson #3:     Respect and Trust (both are earned through our actions and words – make good                                                       

                                decisions and speak thoughtfully – also be respectful of others)

Life Lesson #4:     Perspective (expand your vision to learn and to understand)

Life Lesson #5:     Love – Love – Love!

“Overall, I am just so thankful to have so many wonderful people praying for me and keeping me in their thoughts.  There are a lot of people in my situation who don’t.  I have an abundance of love in my life, and there is not much more you can ask for in life.”

Amanda: "Are you scared to die and go to heaven?

Stephen: "No, I'm not scared at all - it's like going to college and starting a new chapter in your life.  I am at peace with it.  I know I am leaving this world having made a difference.  The difference may be small but to those I have helped, it's bigger than I could have ever imagined."

"I’d like people to know that in all my searching internally and externally, I haven’t found the answers to all of problems of humanity and society, but I’ve finally figured out who I am and what my life has meant to me. The only thing that matters is love. I’ve received so much love and I’ve had so many good friends whom I’ve loved. I’ve had a great family. I got to know so many wonderful people, not everyone gets that. I did. And while people may be sad I left so young, I want them to know I feel I’ve done the very best with the circumstances I was given. I want people to know that everything I did I put my whole heart into: my work, my friends and my family. I may have had a shorter life than some, but my life was not less than. That’s what I want people to know. I want them to remember the love."