Yesterday I did my first triathalon, to commemorate turning 40 this year. It was a great experience but what I wanted to share here is one of those sudden moments of healing that come in the least expected ways. Halfway through the event, after I had already finished a 1/2 mile ocean swim and biked nearly 18 miles, I passed a biker on the side of the road laying flat on his back. He was surrounded by emergency personnel and an ambulance was across the street. I managed to catch a glimpse of him and see that he was breathing and it even looked like he was able to talk. That was a relief of course.
As I sped by, suddenly I was completely overcome by a rush of memories of when my brother Drew died. The scene was not completely the same, but it was enough to trigger a watershed of grief. I was right back there at the scene in our neighborhood where he had collapsed on a roadside, where we had circled around him trying to get him breathing again, where the ambulance had come to rush him to the hospital, where in the end we had to accept that he was physically not going to live.
I had the experience of just breaking into huge sobs right then without warning. I did my best to just allow myself to cry and let it out. After a while, I passed a camera man and tried to smile though it anyway. That might be a strange picture in the end, but for me it was a moment of allowing my healing to show up where ever it wanted. I guess yesterday, that moment of healing was on my bike along the Pacific Coast Highway. Wow, did it surprise me in coming up and in how intense it was. I remember it now to honor that feeling and to remember that although it hurts it is a sign of the great love we shared for each other. Drew I miss you.
If you want to hear the other details of my triathalon you can read them at my other blog http://embracingyourpath.blogspot.com/
Walking Through Grief 