The pit in her stomach began to appear April 2, 2020.  She spoke of all that she was tending to.  The stress of preparation and anticipation anxiety of the ‘death do they part’.  What is that pit saying, trying to say, I wondered.  I wondered if she had been listening to her body.  I guess maybe in her own way. My wondering out loud became her own wondering check-in loop.  Trying to put words to the pit.  Months later when she returned, the pit had become something more real for her when it manifested as an acid reflex.

“Sometimes I want to just cry out,” she had pumped her arms anxiously in the moment, to show me.  It wasn’t triumph, I saw the human in her.  There was the ‘what will I do?  How will I live without him? The summer and fall came and went.  It was nice to hear from her again.

« I have heard that yogis can control their heart rate and blood pressure. It feels like I can feel the acid swelling within.”  What the yogis do is like biofeedback.  It is said in yogic terms, control your breath, live life with full awareness agency.  We can all practice that feedbacking awareness.  Imagine that you offer a gentle rub to the gurgling acid just as it might seem to be popping the herniated membrane.  It might be calming.  She nodded, “but who really knows”. 

Who really knows.  She was fascinated and importantly, all caught up on the possible research on his behalf, including a second opinion with one of the leading oncologists in the field, so why not turn to the acid reflux pit in her stomach and hear what it is saying!  There’d be time for her.  Not in the final sense, just in the sense, there wasn’t anything else she could do!  She was grateful that their lives had been as normal as they had been.  She’d been able to do all that keeps her happy, while looking after him.

Now, the eve of a trip back home, not knowing what it might hold, he was losing weight, he had lost a lot of weight and we sat in silence a moment and I think, I sighed.  She took the cue.

“The pit in my stomach is not so much the ‘this is getting to me’” as it is ‘how will I do? and how will life be on her own?’.  It could be an experiment reading her body signs.  She is seeing that engaging a mind-body dialogue and awareness could be helpful towards self-knowledge.  She could count her blessings.  She could feel a terror.  The arms pumped in the air again.  This time there was an inaudible shrieking.