Steak Night

Flying to Minnesota to the funeral of my Grandfather was full of light and love-- my greatest memories from my childhood were at my grandparents house. My mother left my brother and I with my father when I was 8, I remember the day like it was yesterday my father in the kitchen looking out the window, searching for the life he had the day before. There are many stories of why my mother left, to this day I don't really know which ones are true, I just remember she left. My father not knowing what to do with myself 8 and my brother 6 brought us to my Grandparents, my mother's parents and they held us, shocked as we were, there was never a bad word from my grandparents to us for either parent. I learned later that my grandparents stopped speaking to my mother for a year because they could not believe a mother would abandon her children. The weekends at my grandparents were filled with wonder, mystery, and large heapings of love. My grandfather worked for US Steel, and my grandmother worked in a factory for a while, they worked hard, and they prayed hard and their life was surrounded by family-- every Saturday was "Steak Night" my Aunts and Uncle would come over and sit around the kitchen table while a game show or the news played in the background... I to this day love the sound of jeopardy or wheel of fortune it is comforting to me. After dinner we would go to church at the Catholic church down the street, I can smell my gradfather's cologne.. I think it was Brut, I can never remember the name, but the smell settles me every time. Church was a staple in their household, Catholocism and the teachings were strong. Work hard, pray hard, love more than you don't, and forgive because someday you may need to be forgiven. And they did start to speak to my mother. But I don't to this day believe that they ever forgave her-- for the unspeakable act of leaving her children. For years there were empty promises, broken promises from my mother, and me 8, 9, 10, 11 motherless-- I don't think I ever healed from that-- it is a deep thick scar, and many of my relationships with men and women have been affected by feeling like at any moment my world was going to fall apart. I've learned to manage my fear of losing everything, but I have never fully recovered.

I can relate to the beginning yoga student because my first experience on the mat, was powerful, and a complete feeling of home. The powerful words of encouragement, the explanation of brightness that is always and will forever be there were words that flowed from my grandparents to me and I had not heard them for a long time, but interestingly I remembered them-- the first yoga class is so potant for the student, I remember it, and feel it everytime I step onto my mat. A groundedness, a connection, a tether to remembrance. My practice has become a place of solice, a place of refuge, a place of me, the me I lost at 8, the me that never left, the me that holds onto the thought that I'm worthy enough to stay for. My Grandfather is stronger in presance now than before, I feel him, I know he sees me on my mat and silently says, "that ol Jenny, what is she up to now?" I have never felt alone, even though I have had times of lonliness, because my tether to love was my grandparents, and today that tether is strong and grounded in me to begin to feel strong enough to tether others on their path of remembrance.