I Lost My Future but Gained a Life

On the sheer suffering of being human—and what grows in the bare branch season

“To me, real love, the move from power to love, involves immense suffering. Any creative work comes from that level, where we share our sufferings, just the sheer suffering of being human. And that’s where the real love is.”

― Marion Woodman, Conscious Femininity

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Being human hurts

I tried for years to avoid this fact—doing my best to numb myself with work, wine, achieving, proving I didn’t need anyone. But no matter how you run from pain, pain will track you down until you finally dive into it and let it devour you.

I didn’t choose to dive. The car accident threw me in.

NOTE: Suffering and grief have transformed my life. In the last twenty years, I’ve lost my younger brother (his case is cold), almost lost my son (he’s healthy now with a wonderful little family—I’m a grandmother), and I almost lost my life.

March 2017, nine years ago. The month we arrived home from Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego after almost six weeks of recovery from a near-fatal car wreck in Baja, Mexico.

I lay in bed staring at the majestic red oak tree outside our bedroom window. It was one of the main reasons we bought this house. On our combined top-ten list of what we wanted, a sacred tree was high on mine.

I stared at its bare branches and could make out the small, pointed, reddish-brown clusters at the tips of twigs. The branches looked bare but not dead—there was a subtle shift happening that I noticed each day as I watched the tree.

I was not dead. But my vision of the future I’d imagined was.

I felt a deep sadness that my life as I’d known it was over.

There was nothing in its place.

I sobbed, imagining never being able to go back to Baja to see the whales and spend time in nature. Many days felt dark and heavy, although I continued to face forward and learn to walk for the second time.

My home care physical therapist, Inger, gave me hope I would be able to walk again. Twice a week she helped me strengthen my legs.

“You don’t know what you’re capable of doing, so I want you to do your exercises each day,” she said.

I started counseling with an Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapist.

I learned to hear and support the parts of me who were angry, sad, and the parts that had hope. My higher Self was fresh from my near-death experience (NDE)—the peace and love were still there. But I had to learn to find the parts of me that were suffering.

Finding those parts and witnessing their hurts and grief, helped me begin the long process of healing emotionally.

I worked with my counselor for two years as I went through the suffering and grief. I learned to take one day at a time. I did not know what I would be capable of once I physically healed.

But lying in my bed at home, staring at bare branches, I began to pray to the God of my understanding. Not the positive-psychology prayers. Not the “everything happens for a reason” prayers. Just:

I can’t do this alone.

And as I prayed, I couldn’t help but notice: help had appeared when I was most broken.

When I divorced at 35 with no house, no car, no job—a friend loaned me her extra car. Another rented me a house. My employer hired me back.

When my son was diagnosed with a disease and needed surgery —we’d just moved near OHSU hospital. The tram connected in our South Waterfront neighborhood went directly to the hospital building to his doctors. My friend Kandice, a gastroenterologist, volunteered to attend his appointments with me for support (my son recovered just fine).

When I was bleeding in Baja—John happened to be an ER doctor.

A new ambulance happened to drive by in the middle of the desert 20 minutes after the accident.

It took the ambulance that was called to the accident, 45 minutes to arrive!

I wasn’t grateful for the traumas. But I couldn’t deny: something was there in the breaking.

The buds on the oak: tight, compact, waiting. Not yet ready, but preparing.

That April and May, I was walking again with a leg brace on my left leg.

Suddenly, seemingly overnight, the bare branches of the red oak were covered in pale yellow-green catkins—long, drooping, finger-like clusters that hung down like tiny tassels or fringe.

photo credit Pixabay

From a distance, the whole tree looked like it had been dusted with chartreuse mist. Not quite green, not quite yellow. A soft, fuzzy haze that made the skeleton of bare branches look almost smoky or veiled.

The catkins were delicate, papery, releasing clouds of pollen when the wind moved through them. But from across the yard, it just looked like the tree was glowing with potential—not yet leafed out, but no longer winter-bare.

It was the in-between moment. The pause before emergence.

I too was in that in-between moment.

Two years later, I can tell you: the leaves came. I hiked six miles to Rosary Lakes on the Pacific Crest Trail, exactly as I had visualized while in the hospital.

Nine years later, I’ve returned to Baja four times to spend time in nature. I was not afraid to come back, but we now have evacuation insurance when we travel internationally.

I write this from a body that works differently but works.

But I won’t tell you that to bypass the bare branch season.

I’ll tell you this: If you’re staring at bare branches right now—if your future died and there’s nothing in its place yet—

You’re not doing it wrong.

The buds are there. Tight, compact, waiting. Not yet ready, but preparing.

And one morning, seemingly overnight but actually after months or years of waiting you couldn’t see—the catkins will appear.

Not leaves yet. Just that strange yellow-green haze that says: something is happening.

You’re not healed. But you’re no longer winter-bare.

That’s enough for today.

XO, Sherold

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What helps you stay present in the bare branch season? I’d love to hear.

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