Excerpts from “Dusting off my Soul”
“It was the end of May in New Milford, Connecticut and although the water temperature of Candlewood Lake, wasn’t exactly welcoming, I had to get my training in. I’m anything but a good swimmer, but I’ve always loved to bike and to run. Swimming…I’d leave that to the fish.
That morning, I remember lying in the lake, floating, to catch my breath. Feeling weightless, supported by the cool water beneath my skin. Soaking in the warmth of the sun that framed the parts of my body that were exposed upon the surface.
I remember the moment when the sun became brighter, and later thinking, it was as if it was the exact moment my mother’s soul left her body to pass through the atmosphere and into the heavens.
The promised visit to my mother would never happen. She took her life on Thursday, May 30th, 2013.
Ironically, from that day on, just like my mother showed me how, I did what I had to do; I went into survival mode. Life also did what it tends to do; it went on with no regard for the storm I was barely weathering. And mine, well mine was a shit storm of events that happened way too quickly, not allowing me any chance to properly mourn the loss of my mom, to truly grieve her, let alone process what she had done.“