The Practice

Last Tuesday was one of Those Days.  I spent the morning waiting for the AT&T tech to come fix my internet connection (between the hours of 8a-12p), which another technician had accidentally disconnected the day before while working on someone else's phone line.  So much for quality control.  After 90 minutes with the tech and half an hour on the phone, everything was back and running and they had credited my account.  

In the afternoon I had a Care Plan Conference scheduled at Maryhaven, which is basically a meeting held every six weeks for Dad's whole team to get up to date on what's been going on.  I sit down with the head nurse, activity director, and social worker from the nursing home, as well as our social worker, nurse, chaplain, and anyone else available from Hospice and we discuss our observations and concerns, and brainstorm on what changes to make.  One of the decisions we came to was that I needed to compose a difficult letter to someone on his behalf, and I left feeling distracted, but confident it was the right thing to do. 

Immediately after the care plan conference, I met with a representative from the Veterans Association- I've  been fighting to get Dad VA benefits for more than two years and after dozens of letters and phone calls and even having Rep. Jan Shakowsky's office advocate on our behalf, some payments are finally starting to come in.  The representative needed to "verify" that Dad actually lived in a nursing home, was confined to a wheelchair, was incompetent to make decisions...and didn't own a gun (a requirement under the Brady Act).  While productive, the meeting was long and drawn out and after that and the care plan conference, I was mentally fried and ready to leave the nursing home but went back to Dad's room to spend some time with him. 

When I finally did get in the car to leave, I was overcome with a stronger than usual surge of sadness and had to fight back tears.  I had so much on my mind- Dad's unrest at his parents "being there" (it's common for people who are close to death to have visits from loved ones who have already passed), his increasing detatchment from me, the team's general agreement with how quickly he's going downhill, my annoyance with how drawn out the VA process has been- but I was mostly thinking about that letter.  I wanted to get started on it, but really felt that I should go to yoga that evening. 



Morale boosting, indeed

 15 minutes into the practice, I thought that maybe I had made a mistake.  I was going through the asanas and pranayama on auto-pilot, and instead of focusing inward I was trying to compose that pesky letter in my head.  Now I know (or at least I like to tell myself) that everybody's mind wanders during yoga; even the most devoted yogis must forget about their breathing and think about their grocery list or next work assignment once in a while, right?  But I truly didn't feel like I was getting any release from the class, other than a nice hamstring stretch.  Still, I stayed until the end, thankful for some movement in my day if nothing else. 

As soon as I got home, however, I couldn't believe how calm I was.  Sometime between sivasana and driving home I had forgotten about the letter almost entirely and was noticing a sense of peace inside that was missing all day.  I decided to put the letter off until the next day and instead made dinner and caught up on some reading.  I know if I had gone straight home from the nursing home I would have been anxious and distracted and upset the whole night, and am confident that the 70 minutes of yoga was far more beneficial than I originally gave it credit for.  I was reminded that the simply taking time out, breathing, and doing something kind for my body is far more restorative than I sometimes give it credit for.