Shaking off the Snow

Snow, snow, snow. We just passed Groundhog Day, the half way point in our winter.  It has been a reasonable winter but I am also caring for my ninety-year-old father.  Two infections have led to a decline in his cognitive abilities and I am picking up more of his tasks.  He lives in a very nice retirement residence close to my home and my brother lives only minutes away.  He has enjoyed good health most of his life and is financially fine. It could be so much worse.  And yet some days I find myself weighed down by the added responsibilities, errands, advocating and problem solving.  Sometimes it only takes one more phone call from a staff member at the residence for me to bottom out.

On the weekends, my partner wisely insists that we ski in the forest.  He knows that is where life comes back to me.  Although my body feels worn out, I know he is right and off we go.  I know in my mind that the exercise will give me endorphins, the feel good chemicals we make that are in the same family as morphine.  I know in my mind that exercise will get more oxygen into my brain so I can think more clearly.  I know in my mind that exercise is good for my health.  And so my mind agrees.  Yes, let’s go skiing.

What I always forget (but my partner does not) is that when I get into the forest, I am surrounded by friends and wise teachers.  I greet the trees and I start to pay attention with another part of myself.  The snow has weighed the branches down and many now rest at my shoulder level.  I feel my burdened physical self resonate with the laden branches.  Still not able to let my own burden go, I raise my ski pole and pull a branch lower.  Then I release it and it springs up shaking off the powdery snow.  I repeat this over and over until I can feel the spring in my own body.  The trees are showing me how to shake off the burden so that I don’t snap like a dead branch under the weight.

And then I take a deep breath and with the exhale, I feel the heaviness slide off of me into the Earth.  And my body feels the spring of release.

Now I start to pay attention to the roots under my feet.  I think about the roots of dying trees and how new roots will take their place.  I reflect on the neural pathways that I am shutting down as my father ages.  The pathways in which he is bright and in charge of what he wants and how he will get it, have to be let go of.  Those neural pathways will wither away in my brain.  New pathways are being created in which I have to look out for his needs and help him get what he wants.  I picture these as tiny roots spreading through the forest floor. 

My father has gone from a man who doesn’t like to be touched, to a man who needs to have his nails cut, his hair cut, help with dressing and getting out of a car.  These are new pathways between us.  When you think about the brain, grieving is the letting go of familiar pathways and replacing them with new ones.  We let the old pathways go, one at a time which is why grieving takes so long.  We build new pathways one at a time which is why it takes some time for new things to feel familiar or normal.  The forest shows me this as I imagine the forest floor in its ever changing patterns.

And then the ski trail brings us back to the main building.  I have oxygen and endorphins in my brain, I have shed my emotional baggage and I have a new way of seeing this journey that I am taking with my father.  No drugs, no substances, no shopping, just the endless snow and the forest and my partner who cares for me.  They say the simplest solutions are the best.  Yup.  I agree.