Becoming My Own Gravity

I was standing at the end of a hospital bed, holding my son’s hand as tightly as I could, hoping if I held his hand, it would help to anchor him as we witnessed the unthinkable. He was about to turn twenty-two; she had just turned twenty-one six weeks earlier. He was in shock, not knowing how to process what he was seeing. I didn't know how to process what we were seeing. Thirty-six hours earlier, he had kissed her as she and her mother got into a cab to go to the hospital. At the time I could feel him trembling inside as he stood there stoically. I could feel his world slipping away beneath his feet as much as my own. The doctors and nurses had just taken her off life support. Tubes removed, monitors silenced. It had only been twelve days since she first felt that earache. Twelve days from ordinary to catastrophic. The doctor called her time of death within two minutes. This was the pivotal moment—an abrupt halt to life as I knew it, a violent scratch across the record of my life that had been playing. It was the moment we felt the ground beneath our feet disappear.

My brain tried to catch up to my heart, but both were lost in free fall. I stood there, holding my son’s hand, thinking - thank God if he had to see this - at least I am here with him. But I was having a hard time comprehending all of this. I held his hand to steady not only him but to anchor myself, to cling to anything solid at that moment when it felt like the floor had vanished. A trapdoor had opened beneath us both, and we were in a free fall. There were no words. The deafening quiet of finality was broken by the sound of quiet sobs from her grandmother and aunt and the sound of my son’s breathing, uneven and broken.

The days that followed were ugly. There’s no polite word for it. Each morning, I sat in my family room chair, clutching my coffee, thinking maybe I’d write to process my grief—but all I did was cry. I felt the world spinning out of control, and I had no idea how to stop it. I feared for my son in ways that words can barely capture. He had said things in the dark shadow of his grief that left me terrified for his life.

I didn’t know Shannon well—we were just beginning to get to know one another—but she was the love of his life. And he was hers. Their young love was full of possibility and torn away before having a chance to settle into adulthood. Each day afterward, a step took a lot of effort. I felt trapped in mud, my feet entrenched in grief, heavy with sorrow, unable to move, barely able to breathe.

Desperation led me to meditation. It wasn’t graceful. I found the Insight Timer app. I wasn't ready for silent meditation, so I stumbled through a few guided meditations, tears streaming down my face as I tried to follow along. I wasn't sure it would help, but I needed something—anything—to slow the spinning, to find even a sliver of ground beneath me.

In those early days, meditation felt like shouting into a void. My mind was a room without gravity, and everything—my thoughts, my fears, my grief—ricocheted violently around me in chaos. Crying through the sessions, fumbling toward something that felt like steadiness. Trying to meditate felt like trying to anchor myself in zero gravity.

I did it regularly in those first days—until I didn't.

Then, a few years later, my mom had a stroke. An unsettled feeling came over me, and I started opening up Insight Timer here and there. And then my mom died.

If Shannon’s death was the floor disappearing, my mother’s passing was the loss of gravity altogether. I did not realize nor appreciate how much of a grounding force she had been in my life until she was no longer on the other side of the tether, grounding me. Without her, I felt everything—memories, emotions, even my own sense of self—drifting weightless around me. It was different from the shock of Shannon’s sudden death. I knew my mother had lived 86 years and had a life. But this was the final cutting of the cord. This was quieter, heavier grief, but no less destabilizing. And I knew in my bones that my father would be next. I didn’t want to be untethered again. I wanted to be more prepared. I needed to be.

That was the day I made a vow to myself: daily meditation, no matter what. March 28, 2021. A line drawn in the sand of my life. I would sit every single day, whether I cried or not, whether it felt like it was helping or not. Whether I believed I could survive the next loss or not.

At first, my meditations were like wandering through dense, unfamiliar forests. Many of the guided meditations invited me to imagine walking along a path, but all I saw was overgrowth and darkness. I was lost. Completely and utterly lost.

But I kept walking.

Eventually, I could see glimpses of a path through the tangled underbrush. Not always clear, not always straight, but it was there. I was becoming more in control of my breath. It became the rhythm of my footsteps. The simple act of breathing in and breathing out created a faint trail beneath my feet.

Other times, I focused on water—a waterfall to cleanse ourselves, a quiet lake to reflect in, and then, there is the ocean. The ocean became another teacher. The waves lapping against the shore, the constant push and pull mirroring my own breath. Breathe In - Breathe out. Life is like that ocean—sometimes calm, sometimes stormy, but always in motion. Never stagnant. There is a give and a take. A rise and a fall. There are the riptides of grief that occasionally threaten to pull me under. I know now not to panic. Breathe in - Breathe out. I remind myself the waves will eventually return to shore.

As the chaos within me began to settle, I discovered something unexpected: meditation wasn’t just a life raft to keep me from drowning in grief. It became a vessel for creation. Meditation taught me to visualize my future—not as a wild fantasy but as a tangible reality I could work toward.

I saw my book long before it was ever published. It took me a while to understand how to go this. My initial visualizations mimicked a cartoon of a book, revolving in mid air. No cover, no words - just a book. I imagined holding it in my hands, feeling its weight, seeing my name on the cover. Eventually I imagined myself sitting at my desk writing - not specifically what to write - just the act of writing. Meditation helped me move from dream to action, I learned how to visualize an outcome to take the steps to make it real.

The same was true for our house renovation. Through meditation, I walked through rooms that didn’t yet exist. I touched walls that hadn’t been built. I saw the life I wanted to create for myself and for my husband, Mark, and I moved toward it with clarity and purpose.

Even our relationship grew stronger because of meditation. After fourteen years together, I could see our life more clearly, to picture the path ahead, not just for myself but for us. It helped me visualize a future grounded in intention and love, leading us toward marriage.

Our meditation space has shifted over the years. We have our cushions, though the renovation has pushed us into new corners of our home—sometimes meditating in our wingback chairs, other times lying across our bed. We keep the lights low, let the sounds of Insight Timer fill the space, and if it’s quiet enough, we sit in silence. The practice is portable. It travels with us, no matter where we are.

Grief still lives in my body. It always will. It feels heavy and sodden, like wet clothes clinging to my skin. In these past ten years, I have carried the weight of so much loss—dogs, friends, parents, my ex-husband. Each loss feels like the floor has been ripped away again, if only for a moment.

But I know now: I have tools in my arsenal. Meditation gives me the rope to pull myself out of the mud when grief tries to swallow me whole. It doesn’t stop the storm, but it reminds me I can weather it.

If I could whisper one thing to my younger self, it would be this: Sit down. Breathe. Start this practice today. And teach it to your children from the moment they are born.

Grief is part of life, particularly when you have loved. Loss may still knock the wind from my lungs. But I have become my own gravity now. I am grounded. I am here. And still, I sit so that I can continue to stand and move forward in life.