Marcia's Musings: The Five-Minute Fantasy
/By Marcia Appel — Last Updated: April 7, 2025
If you’re confronting grief, here is a first-aid love offering for you. When it hits you, remember that grief is normal, fully human, and manageable. It can be triggered by the loss of a person, a pet, a sense of financial or job security, a cultural shift – really by the loss of anything that anchors your life.
What caused me to write about grief was a friend’s recent call. Her voice on the other end of the line – such a quaint phrase in our modern cell-phone universe – broke as she carefully chose her words. “My mother is still alive and lively, and already I know I will be saying and thinking, ‘If I only could talk to her for just five more minutes,’ when she dies.” The premature, and perhaps preemptive, ache and longing in my friend’s voice struck familiar tones in my body as I listened. Before the call ended, she invited me to do some brainstorming about ways to enrich whatever remaining time she and her mother had left to ask and listen intently, to soak in each other.
Joan Didion’s seminal 2005 memoir The Year of Magical Thinking, written after the 2003 death of her husband, screenplay writer John Gregory Dunne, and the severe illness of their only child, daughter Quintana Roo, the same year (which led to her death two years later), took an unsparing, modern look at grief. I read the groundbreaking work immediately after its publication as my father faced death, passing on Memorial Day in May 2006. I remember feeling grateful – and better prepared – when Mom shared her magical thinking with me and my own soon set in. In a lifetime of reading, I still hear Didion’s description about deciding to keep some pairs of her husband’s shoes: “I could not give away the rest of his shoes,” she wrote. “He would need shoes if he was to return.”
My mother would swear she had heard the front door open, the delicate chimes hanging on it signaling that “John is home.” Mom told me on the phone one day, though, “When I heard the chimes and walked into the living room, no one was there. The door was closed.” For weeks, every time a dragonfly settled near me while gardening in the warm sun, I felt the presence of my father and would talk to it, my own magical thinking. If not for Didion’s book, and the conversations that flowed around it, I might have questioned Mom’s and my stability.
In early April, I received a text from another close friend about her standard poodle, Libby. “We have to say goodbye to her,” she wrote. In the end, that dreaded vet appointment was delayed by one day so that my friend’s husband, who had been traveling, could say goodbye. These are the aching times that confront us, bind us, and teach us over and over that we are fully human.
Grief doesn’t flow smoothly; it doesn’t have a beginning and an ending. It morphs from day to day and makes surprise appearances when you least expect it. Several months after my father died, I rummaged through his U.S. Army trunk, filled as it was with memorabilia, letters, photos, and newspaper clippings accumulated between 1939 and 1945, one young man’s museum of World War II. Even though I had looked in it several times with his permission, this time I dug more deeply and with more intention. I found a couple of surprises.
One was a letter from an Army buddy. Its postmark indicated a mailing date of mid-1947, about 18 months after my father had returned safely to northwestern Iowa. “I bet you’re married by now, John. You are a romantic, and you spoke often of wanting a family life when you got out.” This frank assessment, gently written and even more surprising coming from a man, lifted my misty eyes from the fragile lined stationery. “My father,” I whispered to myself, “was known by his friends as a romantic with a ken for family life?” How I wished in that moment to talk to Dad for just five more minutes, to ask him about his apparently strong desire to settle down and raise a family with the young woman he loved. I wanted to hear him tell me about how he’d dreamed of it and shared it with his buddies during those five-plus years away from home.
Very recently, a cousin through marriage lost her mother. In preparing her eulogy, Sally found an essay written by her mom in the ninth grade to fulfill an assignment to write one’s life story. Sally found new information and astute observations in her mother’s own hand and voice. Sally said she wished she’d found the essay earlier so that she could ask her mother about it – just five more minutes.
In my 17 years at Green Lotus, I have heard many people in this rich, vibrant community, lament time and again: “If I could just have five more minutes with....” How perfectly human of us all. What I’ve learned about grief from them and my direct experiences with it is what Joan Didion wrote about with clarity: We will all engage in this magical thinking from time to time because it is one of the expressions of grief and the release of it. I hope that what I am sharing will help my friends and maybe some of you in our beloved community.
Grief Doesn’t Own You
This powerful emotion spies and haunts. It disappears and then jumps out when least expected. It wants to be in control. When it surprises you, even after many years, remember the Buddha’s advice about all emotions and feelings that come calling: Open your door and invite them in for tea and visit with them with kindness. As you feel grief move freely through your body, it is more likely to subside. When you push it away with force, it tends to grow more powerful, causing you to feel overwhelmed. Embrace grief and feel its grip slowly release.
Name It
Our culture still embraces the “stiff-upper-lip" approach to grief, accompanied by the “have-a-good-cry-and-move-on" attitude. Grief, like all emotions, works in waves throughout our entire lives. The goal is not to squash the waves into a flat-line position (that’s called death). The intention is to calm the waves into gently lapping. What helps in this is to name the emotion and the feelings surrounding it. When grief comes, name it. When the feeling of grief is anger, for example, or fear, name it. Naming our emotions and the attendant feelings helps to calm the waves.
Remember Your Breath Practice
Breath (pranayama) practices like those taught at Green Lotus address different needs and challenges. When strong emotions – like grief – visit me, I turn to the 2:1 breath to release the stress hormones of cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine that accompany them. It is simple, grounding, and mindful. Try these easy steps:
Take a deep breath in and exhale completely through your mouth, maybe with a sigh.
On your next inhale, breathe in for a count of two and exhale for a count of four. Continue like this for a few rounds.
Add on: Inhale for a count of three and exhale for a count of six. Continue like this for a few rounds.
You can continue to deepen breath cycles in the same 2:1 ratio. Stop expanding the length of the breath cycles when they cause you to feel sensations of breathlessness, which can lead to panic.
As you become familiar with this breath pattern – and if it feels comfortable to you – you could pause at the top of your inhale before exhaling and pause at the bottom of the release. The pauses provide an opportunity for the mind and brain – where emotions store themselves – to come home to the body and provide an escape hatch for grief.
If you attend classes at Green Lotus, you can ask your teachers to work this breath pattern into that day’s class. They welcome requests, so don’t be shy.
Act in the Present Moment
You can lessen future grief through action in the present moment. These actions create deposits in your emotional bank account to be withdrawn when grief knocks on your door. I did this with my parents and my elderly friend Cookie, among others. In late March, I said “Yes!” to my children and grandchildren when they suddenly invited me to visit our relatives in the Netherlands. That yes made many deposits in my emotional bank account.
I even had a process with my old horse, Mohican, who passed away at age 33. Long past riding age, I would visit him in the pasture, taking a seat on the grass. Eventually, he would stroll over and nuzzle my face and neck. In return, I gently stroked his soft muzzle and strong head. We would interact like this for upwards of an hour before I left. When each of these dear ones moved on, Mohican included, I had warm memories of time well-spent with them.
Consider the following tips to act in the present moment:
The time to go through old papers, scrapbooks, photos, letters, and other memorabilia with your loved ones is now. Sit and ask questions as you go through boxes and bins or make lists of what you want to ask on another day because the process of sorting tires everyone. Most often, those closest to you will appreciate your interest, and the result will be hours of storytelling and laughter.
Stay five more minutes now. While the five-minute fantasy will still appear, adding a few more minutes in the present moment with a friend, family member, or a pet will comfort you later and add even more deposits into your emotional bank account.
It is okay, and often helpful, to pre-grieve. Many years ago, I walked with my neighbor Kris. We’d grown close over the years and knew each other intimately when it came to emotions and feelings. One morning, I noticed tears running down her cheeks. “What’s wrong? I asked Kris. She replied that she was feeling sad about her daughter Mary leaving for college. “But she’s only a junior,” I replied. “I know,” Kris, a psychologist, said. “I’m carefully pre-grieving so that I’m not overwhelmed when the time comes.” I have found pre-grieving to be helpful in processing grief as a natural occurrence in our human existence.
Learn to become comfortable sitting with your emotions – in other words, inviting them in for tea. Classes like Yin + Yoga Nidra and Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation offer safe havens in which to explore emotions, feelings, and thoughts. And if you are a yoga teacher, psychologist, nurse, or a schoolteacher, for example, Yoga Nidra training equips you with skills to help others process their feelings and emotions to find their “True Selves.” And who doesn’t want that?
Talk About It
When grief hits, reach out to a trusted friend, relative, counselor, or mentor. They will listen and not worry about what they should say in response. Pour your heart out so that it is not constricted by loss. Ask for a hug, a meal, whatever you need. Eating your words about your emotions will harm you. Trust in those who care about you. And know this: I will listen to you. You can leave a message for me at the centers or email me at ma@greenlotusyogactr.com. I am here for you.
Grief visits all of us. When it does, say to yourself, “How fully human of me.” The upside of grief is that it binds us in our common humanity and teaches us about abiding love.
