Becoming Fearless
For several months after June died, I feared nothing. It was unusual. I stopped fearing that June was going to die. She was no longer suffering. It gave me great clarity. It gave me great relief. Tremendous peace. As if every cell in my body, coiled and anxious, had unfurled itself, relaxed, and let go. I spent the majority of days, nine-months pregnant, sprawled on the stained navy blue couch in our living room watching tv. I couldn’t do anything more, but at least I wasn’t scared. People walked around me. Brought me things like candles and smoothies, blankets and slippers. Encouraged me to eat by dropping off precooked meals. Encouraged me to shower when I’d been wearing the same clothes for almost a week. Summer came and went. Grief overshadowed the blissful lack of fear most of the time, but distinct memories of “how am I not worried?” or “why does this not scare me anymore?” consistently surfaced. Now, I had an almost ten pound baby in my belly. Both girls barely weighed in at seven pounds when they were born, but I didn’t care. Birth wasn’t remotely terrifying anymore. People would say to me “Wow, you know that baby has to come out of you.” I’d just shrug my shoulders and not engage. Baby could have weighed twenty pounds, I wouldn’t have cared. There literally was nothing more to fear. The worst had happened. Now, for the first time in my life, my mind and body were perfectly aligned and fearless.
Suddenly, I stopped fearing the everyday minutia surrounding our older daughter like “Careful! You’re going to slam your fingers in the car door!” and “Stop jumping on the couch, you're gonna get hurt!” or “Don’t eat too much candy, you’re going to get a belly ache!” (which really meant there is red dye no. 5 in that which can give you cancer. She didn’t need to know the gritty explanation behind my neuroticism, she’s only four). I stopped worrying about people around me. I stopped worrying about conflict, and stopped caring to engage.
I stopped fearing death. It was as if when June’s soul left her body she first stopped at mine and collected all the fear inside of me and took it with her, to heaven. Watching her last days on earth, the process of her dying, hearing her last breath, and watching the audible sound float to the cracked window across the room, wasn’t scary. It was peaceful. It was beautiful. It was graceful. It was relieving. It was heaven. June became our symbol of heaven.
I once read, fear is the opposite of love. Fear is the ego trying to sabotage a soul’s true being which is happiness. June’s suffering had ended, but ours as her family, was about to become much more severe. Then it became obvious: June, was our teacher, and she was not finished with her lesson. She had so much more to teach. I was mourning the death of June, but I was also being led by her to a higher purpose. Part of that was letting go of my fear and opening my eyes.
Several months after June died, I was aimlessly scrolling the internet and randomly clicking on articles. I discovered one about Barbara Bush. In the article she said “I have no fear of death”. The First Lady’s daughter had passed away from leukemia just before she turned four. I had never known this. At that moment, I knew I wasn’t alone. Barbara Bush had spoken to my heart. All of those months of treatment June spent at the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital, and I had never known that Barbara Bush was right there beside me. She had cried the same hopeless tears, watched her daughter wither away and die in front of her, and she had tried to nurse her back to health. Like me. Every attempt futile. Barbara Bush is an inspiration because she made it her life’s journey to help children and specifically children with cancer. She went on to live another incredible sixty-five years before finally knocking at the pearly gates, where I believe, her three-year-old daughter Robin, greeted her.
