Lapse of Time

I haven’t blogged for a while. There is this critic in the back of my mind saying that there isn’t an audience and by continuing to blog about our journey, I am trying to drag out this experience (not that it will ever go away) or that I haven’t accepted the past or that I am completely self- absorbed to think anyone even cares. I am finding out that none of the above mentioned things are true. Actually the blogging is all about acceptance and people are interested in the rest of the story. Brain Injury is a lifelong journey just like any other disability with its good days and bad ones. This blog started out to give information but it quickly became a way to document, reflect, accept and adapt to our new life.

I have recently been asked why I haven’t done an update and it truly goes back to that critical voice and the vulnerability I feel as I share the details of our story. Maddi was injured but that injury has created a new experience each one of us. This isn’t about me but as the writer of this blog I can only write from my own perspective. I don’t want to come off as a “whiner” or a “super hero”, nor do I want to seem self-important or give the impression we are unique or special. One thing this experience has taught me is just how many people are struggling with hard things in their lives, most difficulties originating from no personal fault or choice. All it takes is a listening ear to hear about ordinary “Davids” facing their “Goliaths” all around us.

I am just a regular person doing the best I can with the cards I have been handed. I just want to be real and honest about what is happening and the cascading effect that terrible day had on our lives. I don’t want to omit the hard stuff but I don’t want to linger there either. We experienced a great miracle that has been a huge blessing in our life personally and as a family. Even with the miraculous recovery this journey has required adaptation and sacrifice.

Maddi is against all odds, adjusting so well to her new brain. It takes daily work and struggle but she is figuring out how to deal with the memory issues and her ability to express herself within a conversation with many people. She is adjusting to her physical and mental fatigue and learning her limits as well. She is learning not to expect people to remember that her brain is injured and trying not to be hurt when people can’t deal with the change between before and now. She is learning to be strong in her choices and to ignore other opinions that could make her feel inadequate. She is learning not to define her life by anyone else’s standard and in the process she is learning to leave the judging to God because not only are her injuries invisible but most people have invisible “things” that affect their choices.

We are private people and don’t spread our business around, happy or sad. This blog really is out of character for us as a family but especially for me personally. As I write I open my soul knowing that there are those waiting to judge and criticize, but I feel compelled to continue.

Maddi spends time reading other blogs written by people with brain injuries and what they write comforts, inspires and helps her. It gives her hope that life will one day seem normal and that someone out there truly does know what she is going through and they are able to make it work too. Maybe for someone else this blog can do the same for them. If one person has a better day after reading, then it is of worth.

This miracle has been humbling, stressful, horrific, amazing, and illuminating for me personally and for our family. It has brought us face to face with the most basic human fears, death, separation and permanent changes in people we love. It forced us to take a good look at where we have spent our time, money and energy and whether they were good investments. It put our family to the test in terms of unity, understanding, and toleration. It has shown us just how equipped we are to support each other during a crisis and the lingering long term effects of this accident and any future difficulties.

I think every family whether they admit it or not deals with this unity test. It may not be through something catastrophic but in some way or at some time all families either bond together or pull apart. There is no middle ground, either you are moving towards or away from each other and that movement takes work. Sometimes the work is pleasant, fulfilling and delightfully fun and other times is it dirty, messy, disappointing and extremely difficult. Pretending one way or another doesn’t change the reality of it.

In honesty, my kids are amazing but definitely not perfect, but I am not perfect either! As a family we are still trying to adjust and maybe we just think about it too much but it takes deliberate effort to remember that things are not the same as before and forgetting that fact can create contention, division and hurt feelings.

We had to relinquish the idea that we can shape our own future in the most basic ways. The idea that if you do the right things everything will work out is true, in its most pure form, but not in the practical day to day living of things. Sometimes things just happen and they derail all of your best laid plans and changing past choices would have no real effect on the outcome. It is best to avoid anyone outside of the situation, who says “you should have done…..”. Being on the outside they have no understanding of the variables or reason for past choices. It has brought a deeper application of the terms; “endure to the end, thou shalt not judge and mourn with those who mourn.”

Looking forward is uncertain and looking back you see only shadows of what truly was. We can only live today in the best way possible and that is what counts. The great scripture that is known as simply, “Consider the Lilies” is applicable here. This scripture has brought me such peace in this wave tossed boat we are in.

One of the things that Maddi said Jesus told her when she was in her coma was that; “He wants me to succeed. He wants me to be happy.” When she told me this in the dim light of her room and in her raspy whisper of a voice, the impression came to me that success, of course, was defined from an eternal perspective rather than from mortality. Success would come from emulating our Savior and would be defined between people’s hearts in that unseen but important space. It is all about how much love, compassion and understanding we extend to our earthly brothers and sisters regardless of the situation, similarities or differences.

I don’t know about anyone else but knowing I have a loving Father in Heaven and a Big Brother who love me and “want me to succeed”, gives me such feeling comfort, acceptance and a deeper desire to be all I should be. If God can create a universe that functions so effortlessly then perhaps he created me to be eternally successful and happy too, even if it doesn’t register as success here on earth.