“The real place of healing is a ferocious place. It’s a huge place. It’s a terrible beauty place with endless darkness and a flashing light. And, you have to get there really, really hard, but you can do it.” ~ Cheryl Wandering
My memory of my sister is more hazy than before – it seems to be more crisp and colorful than before. But time can do this. Her images, which appeared in bold and bright colors in her mind slowly faded into black and white, with all kinds of gray and silver shadows popping up from time to time, almost keeping me on my toes and keeping her memory.
I still remember her apocalypse, as she lay in bed, the light slowly dimmed from her eyes, no longer able to move or eat on her own, the feeding tubes on her nose, and the inevitable various devices around those inevitable devices, and the fear moments when she needed help in breathing.
Like the rest of my family, I would be in her room and check her to make sure she is still breathing. Always the same routine. As the anxiety spreads to my chest, I will put a hand on her belly to make sure it is still rising and falling as it gets closer to the nose, listening to the soft sound of her breathing. Whenever I hear her gentle exhalation, the sigh passes through me.
The night she passed, I had just finished that very ritual show, only once I felt her belly slowly, steadily rising and falling, while the nervous breathing on her face was soft whispered. I still remember going back to the family room and rejoicing,”She’s fine.transparent
Maybe it was my mother’s instinct, but only a moment later, my mother rushed back to my sister’s room. I was surprised by her sense of urgency since I just left the room and everything was fine. I thought she thought I could not be trusted and needed to see it with her own eyes.
Not long after, I heard my mother’s scream, the thin walls of our small duplex apartment. I knew right away what that meant – my sister stopped breathing.
For a long time after that, I accused myself of not being in the room for the last breath and being alone for the last few seconds. If I had just been there for a minute, I might be with her. Instead, when she was about to leave the world, I had left the room to the right.
The next few months were my attempt to understand the pain, chaos and incredible blur of a world without her. When I was ten, I was too young to understand how much hurt my parents were or how deep my sister’s death was for them. I mistakenly thought their evacuation and anger were because of what I did. Maybe I’m a messed-up person-missing signs that could save her at night. Maybe I am the one they wish to die.
These thoughts became the basis for self-punishment for many years after my sister’s death. I find myself struggling with feelings of self-hate and inadequacy, which often manifest as eating disorders, self-harm and feelings of unworthiness.
Survivors’ inner gui and belief that I am a “bad” daughter, and the daughter who should not live will only increase my shame and self-doubt that I cannot escape. But as I grew older, I learned to close pain and memories.
Soon, I stopped sorting out that night. I convinced myself that it was past and told myself that time was indeed “healing all wounds.” I’m wrong again.
It took me decades to understand that time hasn’t actually healed anything. I just pushed my memories so far that they were buried under guilt, shame and unresolved sorrow, waiting to reappear as I was about to face them.
The truth is that time doesn’t heal all wounds unless we do our own work to heal them.
After years of trying, my own recovery proves my worth in an unexpected way through constant pleasure, overwork, overcommitment, and intentionally conducting more challenging projects and activities personally and professionally, just to prove that I am important and worthy of my life. I still haven’t forgiven myself for being a living person like my sister’s beautiful, bright and loving soul.
I finally realized that it wasn’t even the rest of the world where I was trying to prove my worth, but myself. And, if it weren’t for my dog Taz, I’m not sure I would have realized it.
When I first rescued him, I unconsciously brought Taz into my life, another way to try to prove that I was important. After severe abuse and fresh back surgery, he could barely walk when I first brought him in.
His (understandably) anxiety caused severe destructiveness, at least initially, behavior based on pain and pain made him particularly challenging. I still remember countless friends saying to me:You know you can’t do that. What do you want to prove? He’s too much for you.“But my self-punishment game is very strong, and their words only prompted me to work harder.
In my first year with me, I would take him to his special harness like a suitcase, causing him to briefly make leaps and bounds so he could feel the weight on his legs and claws and build up enough strength to start walking.
At first he didn’t understand that he had to lift his paws and then put them down again to walk so he would drag them and scrape the paws until they had blood in seconds and prompted me to pick him up right away and carry him again. (I can only imagine someone else seeing my 5’2 frame holding seventy pounds of pits around like a duffel bag!)
The exercise lasted for several months. In the room, I would take him to the carpet room and teach him how to place his paws-off in all quarters, crawl along the floor with another dog, hoping, part of her, and showing him how she did it. Slowly, he began to understand. Even slower, he started walking.
A year later, he ran, and the months after that turned into sprints. For the next three years, he was able to (cautiously) go up and down the stairs. Seven years after he came to me, just when he seemed to be the most powerful, he was diagnosed with a rare cancer.
“He suffers from hemangiosarcoma. The tumor was in his heart, and each pump was spreading in his body. There is nothing we can do. He had about ten days to stop pumping.transparent
What started as an emergency visit to his stomach problems turned into Taz’s death knell.
The thought of this being the end of his story, it seems incredible when he has gone through a lot and finally reached the other side. In some ways, this is the biggest challenge I face and I am determined to save him.
I didn’t sleep at night with my diagnosis. or most of the nights afterwards. Instead, I found myself waking up almost every hour, staring at him sleeping beside me, tears gathering in my eyes, wondering how I could save him and what else I need to sacrifice to keep him by my side.
I didn’t initially understand that his illness was the beginning of my recovery. The darkness that follows is actually the beginning of light, and it will start to pour into my childhood wounds.
When pain eclipses me in those dark late night moments, I don’t even realize what I’m doing. The moment when I initially just tried to soak with him triggered the ceremony I performed as a kid. Only this time, this is not the sister I am looking at, but Taz.
Every time I wake up all night and stare at him, I put my hands on his belly to make sure it is still rising, falling and getting close to see if I can hear his breathing.
Like that, I brought myself back to the unresolved trauma cycle I was buried and ignored a long time ago. When I realized me, I immediately felt that night decades ago – by the last moment of her, my hands she abdomen.
I knew then that I never really recovered – I just learned to suppress it. I also realized that I had carried so long that I had never really left me and remained a big part of decades since my death.
All the messy tears, anger and sadness that I had never processed before. I cried for hours. Whenever I thought I was crying, a new stream would surface.
This ceremony lasted thirty-four days each night. As brave as ever, Taz has exceeded his ten days, and on day 34, my Taz bear left me. Only this time I Once was In the room.
Somehow we both knew the time had come, and when he put his head on my legs for the last time, stared into my eyes, and continued his last breath, I felt his soul leave his body. Somehow, an unexpected sense of peace seemed to have entered mine.
His beautiful, amazing soul made me miserable, and in the process he somehow broke the trauma cycle I had been caught unconsciously over the years.
His death helped me heal my years of pain and I didn’t even know I was carrying it. As I sat there, holding him in his last moments, I realized that his presence was the biggest gift I had ever received.
For animal lovers, the next sentence would be perfectly reasonable: Taz is far ahead of my pet. He came to me as a lifeline and guided me to the next chapter of healing and self-discovery.
Thanks to him, I officially started a new chapter in my life. I have no long period of shame, indulgence and pain. During that quiet moment, I knew that healing was not linear, and it was a journey, usually led by the most unexpected teacher.
I will always be grateful that I am lucky to have regarded him as one of my teachers.
About Afsheen Shah
Afsheen Shah is a lawyer-turned coach who helps women over 40 reconnect and create a life that feels more meaningful and fulfilling. Work, spirituality and intentional lifestyle changes that blend mindsets, she guides women to rediscover their joys, restore their voices, and build a life that matches their true identity. Please visit www.afsheenshah.com and Instagram @afsheenshah.
