Broken Mugs and Accepting

 

I am having difficulty writing on the blog right now. There are so many things that are deep and full of grief for me as the mom that I hesitate to write about them because I don’t want to affect Maddi’s perception of her healing. In my writing I follow the same pattern as I do in life. I can only write from my whole heart. It is an all or nothing experience.

When I am struggling, I write about the struggles. When things are great I write about how great things are. I am one hundred percent authentic, I can’t pretend. This leaves me very little room when it comes to letting other people into my heart. Once the heart is opened it is vulnerable. The blog allows so many people in that I feel a bit exposed.

I hope that our journey is helping bring others to a life full of Faith but I don’t profess to “having it all together”. I am not perfect and the rest of the family isn’t either. We are just average people having an extraordinary experience right now. Sometimes we manage well and sometimes we don’t.

Maddi cried for the first time since the accident on Saturday evening. She broke a mug because she didn’t calculate the distance or didn’t pay attention to the details of where it was and it fell to the floor. It was a simple thing that could have happened to anyone. As she stood there in the middle of the ceramic shards and water, her emotional state matched the abstract picture on the floor.

She said, “I feel so stupid.” I assured her that things like this will happen and it is OK, it has nothing to do with intelligence. She said, “But I feel stupid a lot of the time now. I can’t get my brain to respond the way it should.”

I would have died right there for her if it meant that she would be whole! My heart aches for her struggle. Others who are not so emotionally intimate with her would never know how hard this struggle is. Because I am her mom, I get to see inside that part of her. She is amazing in her attitude but this is for life!

I think part of her struggle was due to the fact that Mason got his ACT scores back and he got 33 out of 36. That is amazing and of course we celebrated. All of my kids have done very well on the ACT and Maddi was on track to do exceptionally well too. She said, “I don’t know if I will even be able to take the ACT.”

I think she is beginning to process how this may affect her life and to do that she has to mourn for all the goals she had in the past. She has to mourn for the ease she had in learning and accept the lifelong change this journey includes. As a mom, I know this stuff, but I don’t want her to have to feel it.

I have been a bit emotional ever since the broken mug. I want to just cry for her and I have. I want to pick up the pieces and magically return everything to the way it was. I know it is unrealistic but I can desire it. She looks so good that people don’t realize what she has lost. The gratitude for the miracle is not diminished by our longing for things to be unchanged but it does nothing to help today or the future.

It is like being held hostage by your own brain. Brain injury must be accepted and worked around. She doesn’t have access to her brain like she did before. I don’t want to give up the recovery but happiness comes from embracing the new Maddi 2.0

I know that the Lord can rewire her brain and so far he has done an amazing job. I struggle with the delicate dance between FAITH and REALISM. If I want Maddi to have a good attitude of acceptance, I must model that behavior. If I want Maddi to have great FAITH, I must also model that.

We work and plan with 100% in mind, with the knowledge that we must be grateful for any recovery we have. I hope one day Maddi won’t notice the difference between herself before and after the accident. Hopefully she will just be herself and the frustration of her brain injury will fade into the background as she develops great strategies to compensate and she is able to accomplish her new goals.

We have been blessed by such a great measure and we are so grateful. Maddi has talked of the great gifts she has received in this journey. She feels more confident and lacks the insecurity she felt before. Peer approval doesn’t affect her like it used to. She feels more secure in who she is and her value to her Father in Heaven. She knows her Savior and has felt his arms around her. She has heard his voice. She isn’t full of teenage questioning. She knows who she is and knows that she has a job to do that only she can accomplish. It isn’t about being better than anyone else. This life is about being your best self and lifting and helping others.

I wish that my teen years were full of those gifts too. I would have made different choices in some important places. I hope that those gifts maintain the magnetic hold on her as she grows to adulthood. I hope all of those gifts balance out the struggle of the brain injury. I hope that she will find joy in the new Maddi and that she will see the past as a gift as well.