Loss, grief and the breath = square one

Last night I picked up a book that has been patiently waiting for me by the bed. It is Donna Farhi's 'Breathing Book'. I started to read it properly for the first time and as I figure I have nothing to lose all to gain I have opened myself to its pages.
If I explore conventional, habitual responses to how I have processed life this year then I may well come up with the conventional, habitual and often harsh remedies to address the flow on effects. Sadly, I have been ignoring the signs and get caught up in long term remedies that I must stick to or....or everything will fall apart even more....
I did a simple 'enquiry' into the movement of the breath paired with body movement and after several entranced minutes felt my inner body open up. I felt better that quickly. I also noticed that my current normal, unconditioned breath, feels like that of a dying bird. It has a strange diagonal pattern through my body as if one side is full of cement or as if I have been bed ridden, compressing one side of my body for some years. It is a weak flutter, shallow I think too; this life source is like a clogged up river. That is this mornings observation. Then, with a few conscious moves of my hands, arms and then spine it was like an orchestra tuning up, the dam broke and for the first while after I stopped I noticed a whole new pathway had been created.
This is my square one; notice what the breath is doing each day. This is what the living do; we get on with the day to day but we always remember those who have passed. The grief for my niece who passed this year has slowly been creeping back into my body and heart. It never left, it's just that I have been so busy in my job covering for my boss who was diagnosed with cancer this year, that I had to shove it somewhere to participate in the day to day. Now she is back on deck (and carrying her own burdens) I have begun to re-grieve again. The disbelief, the shock, all there buried under months of living the daily life.
I know someone who is consciously dying; she had considered her options and decided not to take the medical path of uncertainty and percentages. I cannot imagine how that must be for her; I'm not sure what I would do in the same circumstances. I bow to her courage.
I grieve for the loss of some of my connection to life, to the things that ignite, sustain and inspire me to focus on the big picture and the service of others. I grieve my loss of connection to myself and if I'm not careful, to my loving, patient partner.
So to square one I go. To my meditation cushion I go, and to my yoga mat I go. To the volumes of wisdom that sit patiently on my shelf I go. Where ever I do go, I will start with square one, the breath. For I have everything I could ever need right there.