Sankofa: Finding Gifts in our Trauma

Life changes fast. Life changes in an instant.

You can sit down to dinner and life as you know it changes"

Joan Didion

This week I have been overly triggered. It started when I was working outside with my husband reinforcing planter boxes in our garden. Out of nowhere I was overcome with an emotional anxiety that I couldn't explain. I swallowed it down. The next morning watching my husband leave for work I got a huge knot in my stomach. Then, while putting away Adrian's clean clothes it happened again only it was much worse. Somewhere between the socks and the shirts I caught a wiff of his smell. This time I was left sitting on the side of my bed breathing to calm myself down. I hadn't felt this way in so long it left me desperate for anything to make it go away. Then I remembered, wishing it away was the reason that it keeps coming back. So after a hot and cold shower I sat down and just thought about what this trigger was trying to tell me.

It had to be related to my husband but it was much later, when calendaring instagram posts, that I realized the significance of the timing of these triggers. It is a year today that our lives changed forever. If triggers are here to point out a trauma wound that is still unhealed then perhaps telling this story will help to heal the wound.  In Ghana people term this idea Sankofa, meaning we should reflect on events to retrieve value from our knowledge of the past. Let's Sankofa our way around the event that changed us forever.

Picture it, two people getting up at the crack of dawn and sleepily making their way to the airport to stand in line for a few hours to make it through customs heading to Arizona. On the other side of customs and fully checked in at the Westjet gate I set about feeding my fitbit and collecting steps. When I returned Adrian looked a little tired and stated that he had a bad gut ache. So off I went in search of a pack of Tums to soothe his gut. Adrian worked his way through the entire pack and by then he was really starting to sweat but still insisting he was fine. Adrian is an unusually bad actor and my spidey senses were tingling. So I left to get him a coffee and a bite to eat but really I left to observe him from afar. As the scapegoat of my family I have this great skill of observing from a distance and reading the room. I can tell you with great accuracy when shit is about to go down. Watching him squirming uncomfortably I knew that time was upon us like a 200 lb weight. So after some light arguing I convinced him that we should use the emergency call phone on the wall and just get him checked out. The phone was not being picked up so I took him by the arm and lead him back toward customs but I could see that he was not doing well. The next 5 minutes seemed like an hour and with sweaty palms and nausea stomping, I could feel my throat ache with emotion. By the time we got to the duty free store I burst into tears and begged the woman to call 911. I was overcome with emotions from a former life in which I tragically lost my first husband in a work place accident. With yet another layer ripped off of that wound, in that moment I found myself back in my old house, with three little ones under the age of 5 being awoken in the night by the awful news of my husband's fate. In my usual silent survival mode I moved carefully between those painful memories and holding strength for my husband.

The next hour of tests revealed a major block in his heart which sent us into an ambulance heading mach 7 down Gateway avenue toward the Royal Alex hospital for emergency heart procedure to save his life. I have to add that Adrian wins the award for being stubborn as he was still holding on hard to the idea that it was just indigestion and we could probably make it onto a later flight to Arizona. It was at that point that every nurse and doctor that he encountered just started to be very real with him. The more reality spewed the more emotion came up for me. This time, unlike the first tragedy, I didn't feel like swallowing it down so I just let it out to be felt. I paced the crowded hallways of that ward looking for empty space to let everything out. Awkward glances from strangers which, in the past would have made me choke back my tears, had no authority now over this pure release. Surprisingly enough feeling the emotions and allowing them to run their course was less painful than swallowing them back down.

Recovery from that operation was long and a little like watching paint dry. Adrian had always been very driven with an intense work ethic to get things done. So here I was, with a husband who was only allowed a few minutes a day of exercise and who had quit a 37 year smoking habit cold turkey. Looking back I am in awe of his will power and determination to heal his body. This event did change our life in an instant but it changed it for the better. We focused on living healthy lives and taking time to do what we wanted to do instead of putting it off until "later". For me I would have to say that almost losing Adrian sparked in me an urgency to take the first steps to what I wanted to become. I dove head first into a career choice to become my own boss which is something that I had been sitting on for many years. I started to open up about my story and take ownership of it's ending. I went fearlessly in pursuit of serving others. I made the decision to practice resilience techniques to come in handy when my past trauma came to the surface. From acknowledging to embracing triggers to find the root trauma this week has become another success in my healing journey. There is something about writing our stories to be read by others that is therapeutic. When we take the time to read other people's story we are holding space for them to process feelings about an event. Essentially we are helping them to reflect, remember and put to rest their trauma.

The quote is correct, life can change in an instant but that doesn't mean that it has to change for the worse. When an event changes the direction of our life we can either embrace the emotions that come along with it or we can swallow them down to avoid the pain. Just a side note, pain that is unprocessed never really goes away...it surfaces again over and over until you find the courage to feel it. I have said it before and for the sake of this story I will say it again; 'You have to feel it to Heal it". From my new perspective, listening to the triggers and acknowledging the trauma actually opens up the possibilities for thriving in life. Here's to events that change our lives and all the emotions that come along with them. Here's to courageously diving into those emotions with prosperity and growth in mind. Diborja!

Anastasia Jorquera-Boschman is a retired teacher, principal and educational consultant who spends her time writing, speaking and holding space for others as a Trauma-Informed Practitioner. Currently she is living life in the moment with her well healed husband in a state of permanent Sankofa!