Six Months of Healing

Woooooooooot!!!  We have reached the six month milestone!!  Six whole months, 180 days and however many minutes of recovery tick and tocked off the clock!  Yet February 19, will forever be linked with the day the Ducati went down..... the day I nearly lost my husband.  The day I screamed like a banshee over Kevin's body where he landed crumpled and unresponsive in the middle of Houston's 610/59 interchange.  At that moment time froze solid and I couldn't see even 6 seconds into the future.

 

Wow!  Really?  Six months already!!? Six months is just a measure of time, the distance from point A to point where we want to B. At day one, six months is nothing more than passing hour by hour until day two.  At day five, each consecutive day in the hospital feels like a prison sentence without having committed a crime.  At day 180, time seems to have flown by leaving little trace of the days in between.  But there were days: long days, difficult days, and fearful days.  But mostly there were days of gratitude.

 

It's rare to get a second chance at life.  The generous gift is not one to be taken lightly.  We had to let go of anger and frustration that there is no one to hold accountable for the hit and run.  We learned to put our stock in the slow process of healing both physically and emotionally without becoming bitter.  We slowed down, readjusted, and strengthened the bond that cemented him and me as WE.

 

We are forever grateful to the February 19 angels on the highway, the Ben Taub Trauma Center staff, and all our friends and family who have cheered us on for the past six months.  We love you!

 

LOVE & HEALING

 



Comfort in Trauma

You never know how it feels to be alive until you know how it feels to die.

I've sang these lines a thousand times while listening to Noah and the Whale in my studio.  Until two weeks ago these were just words. The moment I saw my husband hit the highway pavement, his motorcycle still spinning ahead of his limp body, those lyrics became my greatest fear.

Today is day 16 of my husband's recovery at Ben Taub Trauma Center in Houston. 

 

Time is amorphous in the hospital.  Foggy days, mixed up nights, stripped of every normal human routine.  Our section of a room shared with three other patients has no window.  Minutes dissolve into hours and drain away the days.  Progress is measured in tubes in and out, x-ray results, and ambulatory devices.  We have watched many roommates arrive and go home while we remain. Bunking with people with whom our paths would least likely cross, we all ride the roller coaster together. And perhaps most of us are better because of it.

In a trauma hospital there are few illness patients.  Our roommates have been shot, run over, stabbed and involved in horrific accidents.  Police officers sit outside many rooms waiting for the accused to heal and to take victim statements.  There are those in grave condition and those with mere wounds requiring a one night stay.  Some we have befriended through the curtains, others we couldn't wait to see discharged.  Though we are a truly diverse group, we share common bonds of pain and healing.

I have met two other women tending their husbands, remaining at the bedside to give comfort: one Asian, one Hispanic.  We don't speak the same language but we communicate through our expressions.   Looks of fear, worry, relief and sadness are universal and within these facial cues we lend one another support. Through the curtain we hear each other's cries, the sighs of relief, and laughter.  I know these women are like me refusing to leave the loves of our lives. Over the weeks we have learned basic greetings in each other's dialect.  We offer awkward hugs sometimes misread between cultures but in our need to not be alone we have found each other.  

Life changed without warning two weeks ago.  I feel I've lived a lifetime in between then and now. My husband is healing and soon we hope to go home, to regain a sense of truly living, to feel the sun escort the true hours of each day.  Life will never be the same.  In fact I believe it will be a more authentic, more tolerant, more understanding, more loving life.

 

LOVE & HEALING