Two Years Ago Today

24 October 2007 - Everything changed in an instant.

I have stood on the very spot that her car hit and flipped over. I have sifted through the broken glass on the ground. I have picked up every identifiable remnant from her car, hoping foolishly that it would be the one piece that would fix her. I walked from one side of the ditch to the other. One side she was a bright, happy, vibrant 19 year old with medical school, marriage and a bright future in front of her. The other side of the ditch she was a "very unfortunate young woman" who had a broken neck, split arteries and clots moving up into her brain, starving her brainstem of oxygen, killing cells, dimming dreams. I laid on the ground where she was suspended in her car, strangers trying to put the fire out, breaking windows trying to get to her. I prayed that she was already unconscious and spared the terror of knowing she was trapped and hurt. I have cried silent Thank You's to those who stopped to save her and all who have helped her since.

She has come so far since then - since that lifeless heap, barely alive. She and I finally came to terms that she is never going to recover and go back to how she was before. Anything she does now is because she has learned it all over again, sometimes in a new way. And with that, anything is possible for her. Instead of waiting for some switch to magically flip, she can focus on listening to her body and getting her mind to talk to what is listening. And then teaching it to listen regularly.

Her face no longer twists and deforms when she tries to move it. Her smile is has it has always been since a baby. She mouths the word "mom" silently to me and it encompasses "Thank You", "I Love You", and all good feelings and appreciation she has in the simplest form. She turns her head side to side, laughs constantly and blinks answers to questions with sparkling blue eyes.

We have all changed. We have learned to live with so much less than before. Priorities are different. Fears are different. Hopes are different. But one thing stays forever the same - Sara's tenacity. She has been a feisty little girl her whole life. I underestimated just how strong she truly is. She never realized just how much I love her. We both never knew just how unwavering her brother could be. He has become the anchor for our family - tethering me to the ground when I might be sucked into the tornado above our lives, and holding his sister closely to him, sheltering her from the pieces swirling around in the air. And through it all she never gives up hope. She understands what the medical minds have said and what the data says about her prognosis. But she also has heard so many times that "we know very little about locked-in syndrome, but..." and then they speak the limits as they see them.

I believe in Sara. I'll always make sure she knows what the current information is on her condition, but I will never tell her she can't do anything. I believe in Sara. And if anyone is going to find a way out of this it is her. And she has unlocked some parts already. It makes her so happy that when I crawl in bed with her at night and hug her that she can lift her head and place it against mine - hugging me back. My heart and soul swell with hope and love whenever she does it and makes it easier to get through the next day, and the next.

Who knows what the next two years will hold? I certainly don't. But I do know that I am happy every day she is alive, and she says she is too. She has the best life we can give her in the financial condition we are in. But she has so much love flowing to her she can't help but be happy. And happy is the most wonderful medicine there is.

Thank You, baby girl, for calling out to me in your thougth - for telling me you were alive - for screaming in your thougth for me - that I would hear you and not let them take you - for trusting that your Mother would hear you and save you.

Thank You, everyone, for the endless good thought, support in so many ways (financial, emotional, physical, spiritual) so that I could be there daily with her while she was in the hospital and make a place where we could bring her home. And for being there for us so that we could save her.