Theories of healing

Heal: To become sound or healthy again.

After open-heart surgery, I was very motivated to heal. I knew what healing looked like: it meant reclaiming my life, my energy, my independence. It meant freedom from pain and from painkillers. It meant achieving milestones, such as the ability to walk up the stairs without a spotter, to shower by myself, to walk longer distances and to walk them a little faster every week, to be able to lie on my side. I knew I'd healed when I could bike up long, steep hills, when I could turn my attention to the issues of everyday life, and especially when I could forget about having had surgery.

After Sandy's bike accident in 2005, we took
pictures every day so she could track her healing
progress. I guess this blog may be serving the
same purpose for me now.

It wasn't an easy process, and there were certainly times that it felt impossible. But I had a picture of what success would look like, and I felt no ambivalence about getting there. The stress and effort of the months between learning I needed surgery and actually having recovered from it (about seven months, all told) would be just a detour from my real life, the one I loved.

I think I've always approached healing the same way, whether from a physical injury or an emotional trauma: Start with the visualization of success, what life looks like after healing. Set up some milestones. Figure out how to get there, and then do it.

So how do I heal from Sandy's death? Certainly, pain and the sense of being lost would indicate the need for healing. But I've been flummoxed for sixteen months about how to envision success.

Reclaiming my life? But the life I want is with Sandy. Recovering my independence? I'm feeling a little too independent right now, desperate for Sandy to lean on and not trusting anyone else to fill her spot.

I can't picture a future in which it's okay that Sandy died, and I don't want to. It's not okay. It'll never be okay. But that's where I keep going when I try to come up with goals. I reject that vision, and therefore reject the concept of healing.

I was thinking about all of this yesterday, addressing the conversation in my head to Sandy, as I often do. I wondered if I would finally have to let the fact that she's not returning permeate my cells, give up my delusions, give up the last strands of hope I have in the impossible occurring. I was walking as I pondered this, and I turned a corner to see "We won't grow old together" on the Northwest Film Forum marquee. A movie, apparently, but it sure felt like a message to me: C'mon, Brie. Let go of it.

To become sound or healthy again. I have most of my energy back, though not all. I'm working, volunteering, making progress on various goals. I'm fairly social, though I haven't quite figured out how to weave my various friendships into a solid feeling of community. But that's been a problem I've always had, as it's easier for me to bond with people in the context of a project; I lose touch when we are no longer working together toward a common goal.

Physically, I'm fairly healthy. Mentally, though, I'm not so sure. My goal in healing from other wounds has been to be able to forget about them; this one is very different. I think my task is to see a future in which I am able to embrace my memories of Sandy and the comfort I find in her spiritual presence without resisting the fact that she died and is not returning physically. I can't quite picture that future yet, but I suspect that's where I'm headed. This is so much harder than open-heart surgery.