When The Body Holds On

By John El-Mokadem

What if the body doesn't just remember the past, but rehearses who we believe ourselves to be?

For regular readers of this Substack, you may have noticed that I’ve been quiet the last 8 weeks.

The reason for this is that it has seemed like life threw a proverbial grenade into our lives and said: “This Chapter is over”.

The biggest shock was that my mother-in-law, Irene, died totally unexpectedly.

I’d known her for 30 years and for the last 10 she lived with us, and I had seen her pretty much everyday during that period.

She was a big part of our family life and had seemed so healthy at 74, not even taking any medication or having any physical complaints. Yes, the last few years for her had been hard. She’d spent them grieving the loss of her husband, of over 50 years, but in recent weeks she had been slowly rebuilding her life. In fact, on the day she suddenly passed away, she was actually out enjoying herself with friends in London.

And then, suddenly, she was gone...

…

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First published on our Substack, Breakthrough That, on 4 August 2026.