Labyrinth Walk

Three months before my dad died I was at a rehab facility in Tennesse.

I’d flown from perfect DC spring weather to southern downpours and flooding in the hopes of finding a placement for a client who was ready to start the brave life of living sober.

I sat in a tent in the pounding rain next to a sharply dressed psychiatrist named Joel who’d traveled from record heat in Florida. During introductions, it became clear Joel was a bit of a smartass. I orchestrated myself into his group. I’m a sucker for a smartass.

We’d made it past work chat to families. Joel handed me his phone so I could better admire his beautiful kids and husband. I’d intended to reciprocate with a photo of my brood, but when I handed Joel the phone he flipped it facing me.

“Your dad?” He asked softly as I stared at a picture I’d taken in the hospital the week before. My father’s eyes were closed in a rare minute of respite from pain, my hand on his head, stroking his hair. The attending doctor had just said the words, “he may not make it…” and I’d taken the picture for my siblings just in case.

I cleared my throat. “Small cell. He probably has six months.”

Joel pulled off his Elvis Costello style glasses. and rubbed his face. “My mom has dementia. It’s fucking brutal.”

An equine specialist named Megan, dressed in unironic cowboy hat and boots motioned the group together.

She explained she’d planned to show us the facility’s outdoor labyrinth, but given the rain was moving the experience into a nearby barn. As the group fidgeted, Megan explained a labyrinth walk is an ancient, sacred practice offering the opportunity to quiet your mind in spiritual questioning or openness.

My relationship with labyrinths was already solid. I’d had a transformative experience at the magical yoga center, Kripalu, and another in a stunning labyrinth created from stone during a Brené Brown workshop, a few years before. I don’t know where I shake out with religion, but ancient, sacred contemplative walks in beautiful spaces created in nature — I’m one hundred percent in.

A group of about twenty clinicians shuffled through the mud to the barn where Megan threw open the doors to reveal a large, canvass tarp with a circular labyrinth drawn on top (click the link for a picture and further discussion on labyrinths from a dude with amazing hair).

I immediately rolled my snobby, soulful eyes.

I vaguely heard Megan give instructions to anyone interested in taking more time for their mindful walk to collect at the back.

Obviously, I volunteered for the first group.

Ready to get this ridiculous, inauthentic, subpar experience over with, I took two small LED candles (not even REAL candles) from Megan who said solemnly,

“You will know when they need to be put down.”

I stood in second place behind a man inexplicably dressed in shorts, who stepped onto the mat in a John Cleese style funny walk — an absurdly sincere, over-exaggerated, slow-motion interpretation of a “mindful walk.” I decided I’d hurry through and just put my plastic candles in the center and see if there was a cup of hot coffee to be had anywhere.

Why were we doing this anyhow?

I sighed deeply and stepped my bare, right foot onto the mat.

(Before you go on, please know I have already rolled my eyes at what I am about to write. My problem is no matter how uncomfortable it makes me, it is also the truth).

My foot hit the mat and my whole body rang like a church bell struck by lighting.

I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move.

Had everyone felt it? The room fell utterly still, completely silent.

I looked down at the small, molded plastic lights in my hand and realized for the first time, one was considerably dimmer than the other.

Tears immediately leaked down my cheeks in solid rivers (I cry every time I tell this story. I am crying now).

I pulled the dim light up to eye level with overwhelming love.

I dragged my other foot onto the mat and felt the totality of my grief.

Somehow I was holding my father’s death in my hand. And I knew it.

I forced myself to move while my mind interpreted the maze and a clear thought formed:

The center is six months.

Just as I’d initially tasked myself, I decided I would take my lights to the center in the hopes that the reverberating energy currently pulsating through my cells might release.

No one in front of me. No noise or movement behind, I shuffled toward the first switchback.

Suddenly, I again froze. My eyes fixed on an innocuous spot on the tarp. That was the place. Unequivocal and inevitable. I stopped breathing. The hand that held the light deadened and began to draw itself toward the floor.

I sobbed audibly. I was nowhere near the center.

And because the pull was too strong, and I couldn’t unknow what everyone in the room could also feel, I sobbed again and fell to my knees.

As I knelt, I felt a soft movement behind me, a hand on my head. Tears in my hair from above. More hands, pairs of feet moving from my left to my right. A spiritual witness.

I practiced resting my hand on the mat still clutching the candle. I knew its destiny.

Minutes ticked by or was it hours before I let the light slide onto the mat and rest on its own.

A clear thought: Three months. This is month three.

My knees began to hurt with a wild pain and instantly I needed to stand. I rose with an urgency that contradicted my intense desire to never move — to stay as close to my dimming light as possible.

Eventually, I slowly stepped back from the candle with the words, “I love you” repeating themselves in my head. I closed my eyes and tried to will myself to turn my back on the light. I felt terror in leaving it on its own. Alone.

I sobbed.

But I turned.

Instantly I recalled a man I once saw crash on a ski slope and then have his dislocated shoulder popped back in place. Excruciating pain, and intense relief in a matter of moments.

I walked away clutching myself, silently weeping. Mourning.

Knowing what I couldn’t actually know.

I made it to the center of the labyrinth and became more aware of the other participants. Some passing. Some stopping. Nearly all touching me — more hands on my head, palms pressed on my back, fingers grazing my elbow, hands on my shoulder, fingertips squeezing mine. A physical witness.

My breath returned and for no reason other than I didn’t want to carry it any longer, I placed the second light easily in the center of the labyrinth near others already placed there.

A labyrinth doubles back on itself, so I started my return journey slowly, eyes on my feet.

I felt my candle before I saw it. I braced for the sight of the lonely, dim light and the cold, white pain about to hit my chest. I followed the rounded curve and saw it:

Thirteen molded candles flickering together.

My father’s light, my light — surrounded by twelve solid, sturdy flames. Energy bearing witness.

The perfect beauty of it took my breath away.

The togetherness took my breath away

The witness of love took my breath away.

And my father died nearly three months to the day.