I’ve been thinking a lot about the word “cumulative” lately. The dictionary defines it as, “increasing or growing by accumulation or successive additions.” Cumulative Trauma Disorder (CTD) “refers to an array of conditions that are all precipitated by repetitive stressors on muscles, joints, tendons, and delicate nerve tissues.” Think tendinitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, bursitis, trigger finger.
This past week I observed the fifteenth anniversary of my dad’s death. Having lost my brother, mother and father, anniversaries and birthday remembrances seem to come too frequently. How my body and mind respond to them is precarious at best. Some years they pass with me barely noticing (although my body always knows. I will eventually remember, and realize why I felt so lousy or sleepy or down).
This year, February 24th and the days leading up to it were tough days. But this year I wasn’t necessarily thinking about my Dad and missing him. I was thinking about that time, those horrible few days in the hospital, when I arrived to find him intubated and unable to talk, or move. My brother and I had to make decisions and fast: maintain his current state and consider a life in a wheelchair, unable to feed or care for himself, or remove him from life support and allow nature to do its thing.
My dad worked hard to rise from his poor childhood, where he had an outhouse and would cut cardboard to fit his shoes when they had holes in the soles. He was a doer. We knew he would not want to burden us, financially or emotionally.
When I asked if he trusted us to make decisions for him, he nodded his head. We, after meetings with the hospital staff and sleepless nights, made the gut-wrenching decision to let nature take its course, and somehow I held his hand and let him know. I can’t imagine his terror or sadness. He died a day later, with me holding his hand, telling him it was okay. It was horrific.
But what made it even more horrific was that we had done the same thing with my mom two months earlier. Sixty-seven days earlier. And one and a half years prior to that, we lost my brother unexpectedly to a heart attack. He was forty-two.
Cumulative trauma.
I’ve been wondering if the reason this particular anniversary was so tough was because that number – fifteen – has a milestone ring to it. Or if it is because of everything else that’s going on around me, like the transition to the empty nest and welcoming a new (and challenging) puppy. And, oh yeah, a pandemic.
Cumulative trauma.
As a yogi, I’ve learned to welcome emotions like visitors and honor them. On the 25th I struggled and wept, feeling as if I would never get through the day. But I did.
Sadly, we are getting to a place where all this masking, and distancing is starting to feel like the new normal. But it isn’t. We have to honor that we are living in challenging times, and that our bodies notice.
Perhaps we’re a little more sensitive or irritable. Perhaps we’re just tired. Or emotional. Practice being with all of it. And recognize that whatever is happening is being placed on top of the pandemic pile. And the social justice pile. And the economic pile. And the educational system pile. It is heavy.
Cumulative trauma.
Let’s be gentle with ourselves, friends. Cry if you need to. Sleep if you’re tired. Take care. Treat yourself as you would a small child, struggling to learn how to find her place in a strange world. And take comfort in the beautifully repetitive and comforting words of Julian of Norwich,
“But all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.”
Gray Matter 