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The curious thing about the auto accident that
ended my life was that I lived through it...
Evelyn Wood would have been proud. The
first time I decided to read a book after the accident, I made it down the
first page in seconds flat. I tried again, more slowly this
time. I read the first sentence and the next. And then, as if I
were reading in the back of a truck while driving over the potholes of a
Michigan springtime, I bounced around from line to line.
I read the
words in the middle and a few here and there, at the beginnings and ends of
sentences. I closed that book and simply launched it. Right
through my kitchen. With my cat running for cover and my dogs startled
from their sleep, I experienced the first of many snits that would later be
termed "bouts of inappropriate anger"...
I was detached from this person that didn't
work right anymore. I didn't like this person. I looked
at my legs with a strange curiosity as they ignored my commands and slopped
and sputtered. I felt like an impostor. I feared that the longer
this new person leased my body, the closer she came to owning it.
And
I was scared that people would forget, that I would forget, the person I was
before...
And others didn't understand. How could
they? They couldn't see the hundred and one things I was doing behind
the scenes to present myself as normal. I looked the same (except for
the extra poundage).
I didn't talk on the phone or entertain guests
when my speech was really bad or my head was breaking concrete. I
nodded through conversations. I was scared to admit to myself, much
less to them, that things were really wrong. I still felt that
"mild" meant minor and that I was a failure, somehow, for not
being better by then...
My attorney wrote me a letter and likened my
injury to a symphony orchestra. He said the tests could tell you if
all the trumpet players were present or if the string section was accounted
for, but they could not tell you how well the musicians communicated with
the conductor, or how each individual was playing. He explained that
with a head injury, all the musicians might be present, but some might not
be playing, or not in the right key.
Finally, I was starting to
understand. I imagined that half my orchestra was playing Beethoven
and the rest of those lazy bastards were in the dressing room eating
pizza...
I hated my inability to drive. I hated
the fact that I could no longer play basketball. I hated the pictures
on my wall that taunted me with the person I had been.
People would
joke that I should install a towrope to the corner, or hitch up the dogs and
sled to the store when it snowed. I laughed. I knew they were
only trying to keep me laughing. But it stung. The kind of hurt
that burns the cheeks and quivers the lip. The kind of hurt that waits
until everyone is gone and you're alone and fragile, to pounce on you with
foot-long claws...
No, I don't wish this injury on anyone.
Yes, it did end a life that was comfortable, successful and pretty
enjoyable. But I am so very lucky to have a second chance. I
learned important lessons that didn't demand death as payment.
Many
cannot say that. I have, finally, chosen to embrace this second life
not as a consolation prize, not as a tragic sentence, but as a great
gift. I may not be proud of how long it took me to get to this
point. But I made it, and I'm grateful I didn't arrive too late.
Kara
L. Swanson
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