grief and swimming

I have always been afraid of water. It took me years to pass beginner one swimming lessons, much to the frustration and bewilderment of my family. When I was little, every swim lesson was a battle that involved high stakes negotiation sessions trying to convince me that it was ok, bribes of ice cream afterwards, prying my little fingers from the edge of pool, and dealing with the resulting panic that ensued if my face went under the surface for more than a second. God forbid a swim instructor promised to catch me and then didn’t because then I would refuse to go near the pool for the rest of the season and nothing would change my stubborn little mind.  

Besides having a few scary water experiences as a kid, I think my biggest problem was my mindset. You see, that pool was so big and that water so deep and I was so small and I knew that I couldn’t possibly win a fight with water. I didn’t see the pool as a fun, exciting place to play. I approached the pool as if it was a battleground—me against the water. In my mind my survival was at stake and what was wrong with these people trying to get me to jump right in? The pool was a place where you could possibly sink and how would one recover from that?

Finally when I was way too old to be with the little ones in the beginner lessons, but I hadn’t advanced to be with people my own height, I had one on one lessons with a fantastic teacher who, with patience and grace, helped me feel secure enough to know that the water would hold me in a backfloat. She tried valiantly to teach me actual strokes but the only lesson that stuck was that whenever I got panicky in the water I learned how to flip over and just float, face to the sky, trusting that the water would carry me along, no battle necessary. I could breathe. I could soften into the water. I could relax. I could let that panicky feeling sink and trust that it wouldn’t bring me with it. The pool was no longer a battlefield I approached with armor. It was a place where I could just be. I wasn’t comfortable, but I was no longer so fearful of sinking beyond recovery.

“You cannot stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
Jon Kabat-Zinn”

Like my mindset as a little girl believing that I was at war with the water, my first experience with grief felt like a battle I needed to win, as if I could ward off grief, keep it at bay, be victorious in some way over the feelings I was afraid would sink me.  I mean really, how does one recover from grief that pulls you down into the depths of great unknown? And just like gripping the edge of the pool, when it came to grief I would’ve done anything to avoid facing the so big, so scary, so deep feelings of grief. 

But you and I both know that grief doesn’t work that way. 

Grief and illness and heartbreak come, whether you think you can battle it away or not. Grief comes in all kinds of waves. It hits hard or laps at your heels, it surprises and overwhelms or becomes like background noise that won’t go away, sometimes all in the same day. 

Grief isn’t efficient, it isn’t tidy or compact or logical. Grief has no linear timeline - you will feel better, you will feel worse, but you won’t always feel the same way because grief is like a wave that is always in flux. 

Jon Kabat-Zinn, who has studied the transformative power of mindfulness, writes, “you cannot stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”  Surfing, or riding the waves, is a fancier way of thinking about doing the backfloat. The backfloat, it turns out, is about trusting something bigger than oneself. It’s about trusting in the power of being held - by water, by God, by community, by the earth. Something miraculous happens when we put down our battle armor enough to trust. The waves still come and go, they still hit hard and lap at our heels, but when it comes we can spread our arms out and turn our face to the sky and trust that in being held you will not sink. Grief is not a battle to be won. Grief is not something we can will away, or beat back, or conquer. Grief is a wave, in all its shapes and forms. I know that you know all about these waves. Maybe you are experiencing them right now. May you remember that in the midst of your grief, God is there reminding you to flip over and just float, arms wide open and face toward God, trusting that the God will carry you - no battle necessary.