Standing on Dollymount Beach in Dublin someone asked me, how did you start paddle boarding? I didn’t know what to say…
Here is the real answer.
I was five months pregnant with my first child, two weeks after finding out she was a girl she was gone. I had been feeling her movements, I was showing a bump, we were thinking of names. The pure awful emptiness, the void where she once was is something I wish no woman ever to feel. But the truth is a lot of us have, but it is a topic that can often get hushed.
I am writing this for all women to heal their hush.
I think I sat outside for a month staring into space, holding my husband’s hands, him holding me up.
I don’t remember doing anything else. I couldn’t be distracted with things like television or activities. I knew my pain was far too great to be eased by alcohol. There was nothing my friends or family could say. I just had to just be. Empty. And thankfully with my husband. My husband was a carpenter and by the grace of God, was out of work at the time. We pressed pause on life and were just sad, devastated, and immobile. It is so rare that when we are dealt with difficulties in life we are able to pause, life usually keeps on going but I learned an especially valuable lesson in this. When it is vital to recognise what is urgent and what is actually important. And this is a lesson I continuously need reminding of.
For my husband and I at this time in our lives nothing else was urgent. We had no other children and so we had ourselves to somehow mend and take care of. We eventually sought spiritual guidance and advice from the wonderful woman that married us. She was working in a hospice care facility and she graciously met us in the middle of her work day to listen to our despair and strengthen our spiritual connection. She was like a giant net that held us suspended from falling any further into the abyss we stared down into unable to see what was above us.
This loss was permanent and left a gap that will always be a part of us but it is a gap that I sometimes try to fill with what blessings I have and can also feel the bareness with thoughts of what should have been.
Eventually I had to return to work. I worked at Perkins School for the Blind in the USA, where the infamous Helen Keller attended and Annie Sullivan taught. I loved my job but going back was extremely overwhelming. All my co-workers knew I was pregnant and I was returning to a school full of children, empty. I decided for myself I could not be asked by everyone, how I was, if I was okay over and over, that this would make it impossible for me to get through the day. So I asked my boss to kindly ask my coworkers to treat me like it was a regular work day. This was essential for me. My colleagues held their chins up and hugged me here and there and I was able to do the same. Figuring out what I needed and asking for it turned out to be another significant lesson. I knew they were concerned and felt sorry for me but I couldn’t bear to hear it. I worked with a great group of gals that I felt huddled around me, protected me and kept me moving. After work one evening they brought me to a hot yoga class and placed my mat in the center of them. I can vividly remember the energy I felt from these women. They were like an iron shield around me while unexpectedly, the pain I had been holding in to get through the work day released, and tears fell like water poured from a pitcher. In a strange way though I felt okay, and I knew as lonesome as I felt, that I wasn’t alone. I will forever be grateful for these three women. It may sound strange but when I picture them and that time, I think of the movie Kill Bill and the Deadly Assassination Squad. They were and still are three incredibly strong, empowered women who saved me that day.
The Nurse in the squad (not Darrel Hannah) Perkins’ own nurse Mara, signed me up for a paddleboard Lesson in Maine the next weekend. It was now April, and the water in Maine was still ice cold, but Mara had a way of making things like this feel like the perfect thing to do. I can remember the sticker she had on her car, Try Something New Every Day. Mara was a soul saver at his time, she didn’t take me to the pub, she didn’t ignore what I had been through, and she let me be – not myself. She held my hand and gently led me down a path of positivity and into the outdoors, specifically into the Atlantic Ocean.
This was another imperative life lesson I learned from this experience and that is the power of positivity. This sounds simple yet there are still times in my life when I don’t realise how I much I deplete my own source of energy with negative thoughts, even taking on negative company. When I am truly focused on deflecting negative energy the results are remarkable. It takes continuous practice and self awareness like any other healthy routine we try to adapt. It’s not perfect but it feels really good when I am working on it and when I am in tune with this positive energy I am also able to share it with others.
In those days spent outside my apartment staring into space, an image came to me. I envisioned myself in armor from my ancestors, from the people I loved and admired who had gone before me. My armor was totem like, a bear’s head as my hood from my father, eagle wings from my grandmother, a tortoise shell from my aunt. I stitched a cloak from the strength of my family members, my family members that I knew now held our unborn baby girl in their arms. I would often come back to this image when I felt draped in gloom and would decide to dress myself in strength, love and faith. I had to choose to shed that weighted, tear soaked, hopeless fear I would sometimes wake up in to get moving again.
That April morning in Maine spent paddle boarding set me on a path of healing. I found incredible comfort and a sense of peace from being on the water. I loved everything about it. I loved being out there on my own, floating on top of the ocean, finding my balance, looking out on the expansive water. I found a quietness within myself that took a lot of strength to let in. I bought a used board from an incredible man I know I was suppose to meet- he too was healing through paddling. I soon joined him and his friends in paddle boarding competitions for Christopher’s Haven, a charity for children with cancer. The positive energy was contagious and I became well enough to spread it with them.
That was seven years ago.
Last month my husband, and my two daughters cheered me on as I participated in my first paddleboard competition in Ireland on Dollymount Beach. As I entered the sea, and absorbed the beauty of Ireland all around me, I could feel the spirit of our little girl. She always paddles with me and reminds me to keep my head up, look forward and to be grateful. It has taken seven years to share even a little bit of this story. We each experience grief in our own ways, I share this experience only to answer that question posed to me a couple of weeks ago. I had to think about why I couldn’t answer out loud, and how I may actually help someone else if I do.
The CAPE COD BAY CHALLENGE a 34 mile SUP crossing of the bay in Massachusetts I did for the charity organisation Christopher’s Haven mentioned in the article.
Help information
If you need help please talk to friends, family, a GP, therapist or one of the free confidential helpline services. For a full list of national mental health services see yourmentalhealth.ie.
- Samaritans 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org
- Pieta House National Suicide Helpline 1800 247 247 or email mary@pieta.ie – (suicide prevention, self-harm, bereavement) or text HELP to 51444 (standard message rates apply)
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