Читать книгу HOPE BEYOND TRAUMA - Cynthia Smith - Страница 7

Who Is This Girl?

It’s in the struggle itself that you define yourself.

–Pat Buchanan

Since she woke from her deep coma, Tanya had to relearn every body function. She needed to be reintroduced to walking, dressing herself, brushing her teeth and combing her hair. There she was … with a toddler’s mind in a teenager’s body. I witnessed this familiar stranger struggling with everyday tasks that Tanya had mastered since she was three years of age.

It was a devastating view, and yet it held a dim hope of recovery. It was a time where relief, grief and exhaustion were woven in confusion and yielded an array of contrasting feelings. This was our new reality.

I needed to let go of the person we knew and welcome into our life this stranger who seemed to have come to replace her. While I was still in shock for the loss of my daughter, I was struggling to learn how to care for this “familiar stranger.” Who is this girl? I kept asking myself. Where’s Tanya? Where did she go? Will she ever be back? Who was this girl now wearing my daughter’s clothes, looking so much like her and yet being so different from the child I had raised, loved and argued with? The girl in front of me was not the same person who had climbed into the back of the pickup truck that fateful day.

I had to let go of the memory of who she once was and meet with curiosity this new familiar stranger. It was not an easy task, but I eventually managed to come to terms with our new reality. I felt very depressed and hopeless but still wholeheartedly continued my daily routine, dancing on a razor’s edge of hope and faith that something might happen out of the blue.

Walking down the now very familiar hallways of Rio Vista one morning, I neared Tanya’s room and turned the corner. I stopped to catch a breath and to reset my spirits to high, forcing a smile on my face and preparing for my daily routine, ready to introduce myself, our family, our pets, our address, our house, for the 49th or maybe 51st time in a row.

As I stepped into the room where Tanya was sitting in her wheelchair, she turned around, looked at me and very happily shouted, “MOM!”

I was dumbfounded for a moment. Was she REALLY calling me Mom?

Astounded, ecstatic, I wanted to jump up and down and scream at the top of my lungs, “Tanya remembers ME!” The weight of the world immediately dropped off my shoulders. I now believed there was no obstacle or mountain I could not climb. I had been suddenly beamed up to cloud “gazillion!” The days that followed brought new hope and energy.

One nightmare had ceased … but I was still missing my boisterous daughter.

Tanya had been paralyzed on her left side so her balance was off. Her facial expressions had been rather motionless, only exhibiting the sort of fake smile on command as she had that first time in the trauma unit. Now that some of her memories were coming back, the focus was on getting her body moving again. Every day we walked down the hallways with her physical therapist and chatted about whatever was on our minds.

One memorable morning, I was walking and chatting without paying much attention to where I was going and unexpectedly ran smack dab into the corridor wall. I was completely stunned for a moment.

Tanya busted out laughing! While I was momentarily shocked, I realized that this was the very first time Tanya laughed spontaneously since the accident. The physical therapist and I busted out laughing as well. We laughed so hard, we had to reach for the bench in the lounge and sit down just to catch our breath. The sides of my rib cage hurt as we continued laughing for a time that seemed never to end.

This was such a beautiful and precious moment of togetherness, a healing moment in which I reconnected with my estranged daughter. I remember that episode as a very bright beam of light through the darkest of storms.

As a caregiver … I learned to

 Actively seek the light among the clouds. Don’t miss a single opportunity to laugh, no matter how trivial.

 Laugh, and know that laughter is the best medicine.