Searching for the Spaces Between

In the months surrounding my son’s death, yoga transformed from exercise to something else entirely

Sam, age 5, practicing yoga. Photo courtesy of author.

I started practicing yoga consistently about a year before my son, Sam, died. I had tried yoga in the past, but as a form of exercise. In the months preceding and following Sam’s death, yoga became something else entirely. It gave me permission to spend time focusing on simple things like my breath and my body. It gave me a safe place to go. Yoga helped me find the spaces between and, in the process, a truer version of myself.

Sam was born with a rare, genetic condition called Ollier’s disease. We first noticed it when he was six months old; one of his legs looked a little thicker than the other. It took another few months to give his condition a name and to understand the implications of the disease. Ollier’s caused benign tumors to develop in Sam’s bones, especially in his right leg and hip. He would need dozens of invasive surgeries over the course of his life to correct orthopedic issues and, when he was done growing, he would have to undergo an extensive, limb-lengthening process. The news was a bullet, but my husband, Mike, and I concluded that Sam could have a brilliant, mostly normal life. There would certainly be difficult times, but we expected long periods of normalcy and happiness in the…