When he died, I got sick. He was family—if not by blood then by love. A friend's father. For all but the first few years of my life he had cared for me when others had faltered. He sheltered and fed me, taught me to question and listen and believe, in equal doses. And then, when I was 30, he was gone.
My grief felt like the final moment of falling down, when you hit the ground and rise up too quickly, your body in shock—over and over again. There were times when I would go blank; dark holes of mental space in which I would get lost. My body became staggeringly unreliable, and even breathing required effort. I cried a lot—ugly, deep sobs that left me red-faced and faint, gasping to get enough oxygen.
About a year after my asthma began, I saw a doctor, who gave me an inhaler and told me I might have allergies. I also saw an acupuncturist. She felt the pulses in my wrists for a long time. She looked at my tongue. She asked me about my diet and my bowel movements, my symptoms, and my body's particular quirks or pains.
Then she said: "It's your lungs. Grief. Unresolved grief. Especially related to fathers."
[For more of this story, written by Manjula Martin, go to http://www.psmag.com/health-an...tions-making-me-sick]
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