I touched it again, that feeling between the space where I am now and the reality of your death. I touched it and had a panic attack. I am learning the panic attacks are the result of a confrontation in my body as what it feels like to lose you meets the space where I am, wherever this is. I sat next to my dad while Glinda’s heart broke and tears poured down my face in succession, one hot glob after another. How did I get here to this moment? I was watching a movie, completely rooted to the ground. Embodied. And then I remembered what it felt like to lose you and had to talk myself out of following my thoughts down the pathway toward panic. You were just grounded, and now you are not. The flash of lightening is so fast I cannot see it, let alone catch it. It feels tenuous, the elusive bubble every child tries to hold in their tiny, inept hands. I sat next to my dad negotiating with myself. Am I breathing? Yes, but not consistently. Count your breaths, Natalie. Focus on the box. What is becoming so difficult is that these moments feel like feeling you, and, aside from the panic, I do not want them to end. I want to feel what it feels like to miss you. And I still cannot. I have a panic attack. It is a new layer to the grief. A new room.

The anniversary of your Hero Walk was the 17^th. The Sunday after Grammy’s funeral. I retreated to my apartment from mom’s early so I could sit in the space of trying to remember what it was like to watch medical staff line the hallway to escort you to your final surgery. That day, like so many the week you died, is so difficult to remember. I have flash images of seeing Randy and Adam, of your father and sister, of your close family friends whose names I cannot remember.  My parents were on either side of me. I was wearing your orange shirt we splurged on at Bloomingdales the month before you died because I wanted us to have one nice thing we felt confident in. The family representative invited me to say goodbye to you, but I was not ready. I did not expect to be given space in front of so many people to say my last words to you. I lost my legs and learned that when people do that in movies, it is real. My body stopped working and I would have fallen if not for my parents on either side of me to hold me up. I walked up to you and stared, sobbing, unable to speak. I think I said that I could not do this, but I do not remember. I do not remember my last words to you. It haunts me.

I had a brain-spotting session tonight and focused on the feeling of dread I have when I have to do anything new since you died. I dread meeting with prospective clients for the first time. I dread their first sessions. I dread going to outings where I do not know everyone or have not been to the venue. I dread going to a child’s birthday party. I dread leaving my house. I dreaded having guests in my home and having to be “on” for so many people at my Grammy’s funeral. I logically want to do all of these things and know I will be okay doing them, but the dread lives in a gnarled, mangled mess in my stomach, anchoring me to the past.

The therapist took me through the dread and wove it into the feeling of my safe space. My safe space is Rockaway Beach sitting next to you. My therapist does not know you are there, but I do. We were so happy there in room 27 with Beamer and Dottie, Beamer in his cone because Dottie scratched his eye. I imagined the sun on my face, and the cold breeze reminding me of the wide spectrum of things that can be true all at once. I noticed the glitter on the sand and the sherbert of the sun saturating the clouds as it sank below the horizon. We thought it was so beautiful, this life we created with our gremlin dogs. And it was.

As I processed the dread and revisited the beach with you, I smelled the way the sea released against the shore and heard the waves as seagulls skipped around the surf. And somewhere in that process, the feeling of dread emancipated not out of my body completely, but out of my soul. The thought of sitting with my entire family during Thanksgiving felt less overwhelming as my brain married the idea that I can get through a year of losing you, therefore I can do anything.