CELEBRATE EVERYTHING!

THE GIFT OF LIFE

Do you have any special anniversaries or occasions you celebrate that fall outside of the standard birthday/holiday categories?  

Perhaps it's an ethnic thing, but my extended family saw every occasion as a reason to gather and celebrate - usually with food  - then make it an annual event!  While I was growing up, there was always a barbecue, party or gathering at some one's house for something.  Perhaps no reason was needed at all, but for certain, we never went too long before finding a reason to gather, celebrate life and eat! Johnny lost his first tooth! First Holy Communion, as well as every other Catholic sacrament! Come meet our new dog! New furniture! Uncle so-and-so is in town! Cousin-so-and-so is leaving town!

It didn't matter! Any subtle change in the 'daily' was an event and a gathering or some sort of celebration was in order!

Mom's Special Anniversary

While we scaled back considerably over the years,  yesterday marked a very special anniversary for our immediate family.  March 22nd is the anniversary date of when we brought my mother home to recover in 2007, after she spent 6 weeks in a coma, nine months in five different hospitals, and one transitional care facility.  She is a Level 5 ruptured brain aneurysm survivor. There are not many of them.  (See video below sharing her recovery)

When she first came home, we would celebrate monthly on the 22nd with a special dinner  of her choice, and Dairy Queen banana splits which are her favorite. However, the months turned into a year, and we all rather quickly started looking like little round bananas ourselves, so we decided to make it an annual celebration.

Catastrophic events, whether personal or global (such as earthquakes, tsunami's) tend to change the landscape of life as we know it.  The event mercilessly launches the person experiencing it as well as those around them into the abyss of the unknown and, depending on the event, life is forever changed from that moment forward.  

As author Cathy Crimmons so brilliantly expressed in her book, Where Is The Mango Princess: A Journey Back from Brain Injury:

Here's how I see it:  One day, you and your family are hiking across a long, solid plain, when out of the sky comes a blazing meteor that just happens to hit one family member in the head. The meteor creates a huge rift in the landscape, dragging the unlucky one down to the bottom of the crevice it has made. You spend the next year on a  rescue mission helping her climb to the top, but when she gets up there, you realize she has been greatly changed by the hardship.  She doesn't know that a meteor has hit her. She will never know really.  She only knows she spent a lot of time in a dark, confusing place.  She left a lot of stuff behind, the stuff she was carrying with her, down in that big hole and it's impossible to get it all back.

How do you even get her out? Well, you and your family have to jump across the crevice first and pull her up on the other side of your life.  Or you have to stay on the side you were, drag her out, and then all leap together to the other edge of the crater.

It's not easy. The chasm between the old life and the new is wider than you think.  You could fall in the darkness yourself, trying to jump across... *

I have to say, in the four years since mom has been home, she has taught us so much through her brain injury experience.  I thought I would share a few lessons I have learned from the whole experience thus far.  I say 'thusfar' because I am certain we have so much more to learn.

• You do not need to be able to walk or talk in order to be a brilliant expression of God’s grace and love.

• A portion of the brain may be removed and other parts injured, and you can still be an intelligent, witty, brilliant person.

• Real heroes are those people who fight and live when their physical, mental, emotional life is permanently altered after a catastrophic event.

•  A brain may be injured, but the essence/spirit of a person remains fully unchanged.

•  You never have to lose your dignity even when the most undignified happens to you.

• Life is truly a gift given to us only one day at a time. Daily bread is the request and humble gratitude is the response.

• Strength, poise and power have little to do with the physical,  and everything to do with the spiritual and quality of character.

•  Trust - amplified!

•  Patience and perseverance - amplified!

If I can ever achieve even half the integrity, courage, beauty, grace and faith that my mother has achieved in her lifetime, especially in the face of her adversity, I will consider myself to be a blessed woman. 

Above all, I have learned that adversity can be either a stumbling block or a building block to  faith.  God will not choose for us - we must choose. 

Whatever your "meteor" may be right now, choose wisely.  That deep, dark crater has a slippery slope! If you do happen to slip a little, just hold on to Grace!

May God grant us all the faith to choose adversity to be a building block of faith rather than a stumbling block; 

and help us to remember that in both the good and the difficult times... 

we can always find a reason to celebrate the GIFT of life!

You Are My Stronghold by Watermark from the Album titled:  All Things New
~~~~~

*Author Cathy Crimmins' husband suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) when he was run over by a speed boat.  I changed the gender of the quoted text from "he" to "she" for purposes of this post.  I highly recommend the book for anyone dealing with TBI.  It helped my family and myself and some of our friends to understand the process of brain injury recovery.