I so don't want to be the girl that's using her blog as her outlet for anger and self-pity.
Not every.... oh, so a product of the 80's! Almost defied Poison by saying that NOT every rose has a thorn. But it doesn't. Not everything reminds me of something negative.
The same movie that reminded of how much I don't know, also reminded me of how much my mom was there for me, how much of an advocate she tried to be for me, with no real direction, watching her oldest daughter fight through the unknown while trying to hold it together and make sure that there was somewhere for me to go when (in the beginning, if), I got to leave the hospital,and what was I going to need when I was released, and who was going to pay for it.
Sometimes I still think that she still holds on to more trauma than I do. Not to mention that every time I open my photos one of the first I see is a picture of my sister saying goodbye to me. I'm told they were told several times to "make their peace" with me. But there's this picture, of my sister bending over me with all these machines around me, kissing my cheek and I think whispering in my ear.
There's another moment with another family member, one that I hold very close to my heart and feel a special bond with, that I think impacted her more than I. I am not sure how quickly my family was at the final destination hospital. Most of my extended family lives within an hour of the hospital. At one point I gained consciousness to find the face of someone who didn't live within an hour of the hospital, but would be there faster than god if there was I possibility I'd be taking my last breath. And I knew that.... through all the IVs and who the hell KNOWS what kinds of pain meds and analgesics and other magic drugs were pumping through my brain, I knew when I saw her face that I may actually be facing the end, and gauging by how far she traveled to be there, it was going to be slow. I think that I processed all this relatively quickly after seeing her face, and suddenly all the machines are going off and I think my body was spazzing out, maybe I tried pulling out tubes and stuff again, I'm not sure.... but I know that she still thinks about that moment, that that moment haunts her in a way, that 6 years later she'll still apologize and talk about it. Maybe that was the moment that I realized that my reaction to others' actions impacted them which in turn impacted me, and that it was easier to stay calm no matter what, and somehow I achieved that.
That's definitely not a thorn, to learn how to get others to put their best and most compassionate sides forward, to make others face their fears by interacting with me, that a lot of people had to evaluate their feelings and really their own lives.
Another family member, or family unit within the family, held a huge part in my recovery in the hospital. Again, it's incredible to see the impact trauma has on others.... The fear of loss, fear m of the unknown, maybe fear of not being there if something bad happened, and then eventually fear of not being there when major progress was made, when a "can't" was proven wrong. That family unit, I still wonder what the impact was on them...
Everyone in my family was there for me in those moments, every single member of my family - every aunt, every uncle, every cousin, my mom, sister, brother-in-law and even 2 year old nephew, and my grandma, bless her heart and her soul - every single person that was there impacted my recovery. I saw faces I wouldn't have expected. I saw sides of people that I didn't know existed.
I'm a really, really lucky chick. I don't know many extended families as close as mine, and I don't know many people who have put their family through as much as I have who even still have a family to call their own, and mine came together to help me through a time I couldn't be without them.
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