On Saturday, January 11, 2014, after teaching my back to back Combat/Pump at Gold's in Mountain View, I headed over to the El Camino YMCA to participate in their BODYFLOW 63 re-launch. I wanted the practice since I was going to be filming my assessment soon & wanted to learn more from instructors who had been teaching this format for awhile. It was a great class & then the guided meditation happened. My instructor friend, Judie was leading the guided meditation & I have no recollection of what she said, but during this 8 minutes of class, she took me to a place that I can't even explain. I had chills, I had tears in my eyes, I had this sick feeling in my gut that something terrible was happening to my mother & that she would not be with us for much longer.
My mom was not feeling well at Christmas, but she brushed it off. When Bill & I returned from our New Years Cruise, she said that she thought she should go see the Doctor to find out why she was having this pain in her side. So I took her to several Doctors, she had several tests & had more scheduled for the week of January 13th. She definitely was not feeling well, but we really weren't thinking bad things. I had no doubt that our fabulous team of Doctors would figure it out & she'd be back to normal in no time.
Back to January 11th, after this BODYFLOW class, I had plans to go to my mom's & meet our real estate agent to sign a few counter-offers on mom's house in SF. (It had been on the market for a few weeks) When I arrived, I could tell that my mom was really feeling terrible, she looked awful. So I told her, once we sign these papers with our agent, I'm taking you to the ER, there is no reason to have you suffer through the weekend. When our Real Estate agent arrived, she commented on how "in pain" my mom appeared to be. I took my mom to the ER about 3pm that afternoon, I was there until after midnight & they admitted her with the suspicion that she had liver cancer. I left her once she was settled, not really realizing what any of this meant & of course not having a solid diagnosis, just that they were going to run more tests in the morning, but had her comfortable for the moment.
Sunday, January 12th, the Doctors confirmed in the morning that mom did have liver cancer and they were going to keep her on comfort care & suspected she had 3-5 days. I was completely BLINDSIDED by this news, but we felt we had 3-5 days. When my sister tried to call mom to let her know she was coming over to visit, my sister did not get the "mom" we all knew & loved on the phone & she called me saying that we should all get to the hospital ASAP, she had a bad feeling. At 3pm that afternoon, after my mom had "heard" (I say heard because she was so drugged up with the morphine that she could not speak to us) - from her entire family - including her grandson in college back in Rochester, NY- she quietly passed away with all of us in her room.
I contacted Les Mills and let them know what I was dealing with & if possible, could I get an extension for my video submission for final certification. They had no problem giving me the extra time, but I decided that my mom would want me to finish what I started, so I went ahead and video taped myself 3-4 times before finally having a submission that I felt was a decent attempt and one that I thought would warrant a "pass". Once I submitted my video, 10 days later, I had the "Pass" email from Les Mills. But still, no class to teach. In all honesty, I probably could not have handled "more" on my plate at the time, so I kept myself current with auto-ship & decided that my time would come- I just had to be patient.
Well, to my delight- when I was informed that the Palo Alto YMCA was going to bring BODYFLOW, I was overjoyed! Just like that, I was given a class to teach and the program would start up April 1st. When this quarter's releases came out- I immediately watched BODYFLOW 76 & I assumed that since our new program was being added April 1st- then we must be launching all the new releases that weekend! I was wrong, our re-launch was scheduled for April 8th, this meant that I was going to have to teach one class with something "old", anything but release 76. Well, the only release that I have someplace in my head is my training release #63, so I started to review & prepare to teach this release for my very first ever BODYFLOW class.
I will not lie, I was a bit apprehensive and wondered if I could handle teaching this emotional release given all of the surrounding circumstances. Today was the day. I had a busy Monday starting with my normal BODYPUMP & line dance classes at one gym. After those were done, I started to focus on my next class-- my 410pm BODYFLOW class & instantly started to get butterflies in my stomach. Of course, I've been listening to the music to/from anywhere in my car & after I visited my chiropractor this morning as I got into my car I noticed the most beautiful BUTTERFLY fluttering around my side mirror, my driver's side window & I kept staring at this butterfly. Call me weird, but I felt like the butterfly was looking right back at me, that butterfly was telling me two things: 1) yay- you finally got your car washed!!! 2) don't worry honey, you've got this, you'll have a great class, it'll be just fine. I smiled and realized that the butterfly was my mom. Those who know me & know my mom-- she LOVED butterflies & she would never hold back when she thought I needed to get my car washed & she would certainly comment about it once it was cleaned!
I truly believe that our dearly departed ones come to us in certain places & spaces and they make it known that they are there when we need to know that they are there. In all of the three years since my mom has passed, I've seen butterflies here or there--but NONE compared to this one today, this one made such a point of getting my attention & once it had my attention, it didn't fly away. I wish I had taken a picture- it was probably the most beautiful butterfly that I have ever seen. This doesn't surprise me because my mom was the most beautiful person that I've ever known and probably the most beautiful person that I'll ever know.
My class? Well, it went well. Was I perfect? NO...not by a long shot--I made a few timing mistakes, but I did get in all of the poses, I recovered from my timing mistakes without my participants noticing...and it was GREAT to finally teach this beautiful format! I can't wait for Saturday when we launch BODYFLOW 76...in many ways, I feel that #76 will be my "go to" release in the future when I want to bring back something "old"...I just love this release from start to finish. I never really felt that "LOVE" with #63...I liked it--but was not in love with it.
Happy to be continuing on with my fitness journey--not too bad for a 51 year old! WHAT???? That must be a typo!!! More to come...but I won't get into that YET!!
Just happened to turn my "day at a glance" calendar (1 day late) and WOW- April 3rd's saying is so "on point" and has a butterfly too!
