Fearless
...and undestructible.
On my second birthday, a family member gave me a sip of whiskey and it was all over from there. I stumbled around a little bit, fell down, and broke my wrist. That was the start of a long list of injuries.
I have so many healed broken bones, I’ve lost track. When asked on medical forms how many broken bones I’ve had, I have to give a range. At various times, I’ve broken ribs, fingers, both thumbs, my hand, my left arm, my right leg, vertebrae (vertebrae?! Holy crap!)... I broke my arm mountain biking and my leg in a scooter accident. When I say broke, I mean in each case I mean that bones were in splinters with pieces sticking out of the skin.
Seeing movies and television shows in which a person has a bad break is generally meant as a gross-out. For me, I know the truth. Apart from the initial shock and risk of death by infection or risk of loss of a limb, it wasn’t really that bad. Yes, I realize that I was lucky. For most people, the inconvenience and cost are the real issues.. Fortunately, each of my bad breaks were in countries which have national health insurance so I didn’t go bankrupt. As for the inconvenience, that was probably the most annoying part of them.
A few months after Lucas died, I had an accident that resulted in a joint in my middle finger dislocating and a break in the joint. This is my most debilitating permanent injury, the end result being that I am only partially able to bend my middle finger. That’s right, my left hand is permanently frozen in a position of flipping off the world. The aptness that this is the only injury that has not fully healed properly is not lost on me.
Anytime I undertake anything that could be considered dangerous or have a possibility of injuring myself, my friends (school administrators in particular) give me a pleading look and tell me to be careful. The funny thing is that the times I get injured and end up in the emergency room are generally due to inattention, not because of any sort of inherent danger in the activity that I was doing. Twice I have been injured going around a blind corner and was surprised by an oncoming vehicle. Both times, there were friends directly in front of me. One of those times was at 5:30 in the morning on the riverside bike path when there are typically no other people out.
At this point, I know the truth, injuries heal. My broken arm (apart from the wonky finger) is fully functional. My leg is at full functionality with no issues running or cycling in endurance races. Both thumbs are fine. I mention these injuries to point out an obvious truth. I’ve experienced so many injuries that have healed. My experience with injury and recovery makes the prospect of getting hurt not as scary. As a result of not having had anything too permanent, I don’t seem to have enough concern for my own safety.
I certainly don’t like being injured, but the actual pain is a distant third on my list of concerns of why I hate getting into an accident. When thinking about what sucks about getting hurt, the top three things I hate are 1) inconvenience to others, 2) a feeling of incompetence, 3) the pain and debilitation.
That said, for a while after Lucas died, I was extremely reckless in my actions because if I’m being completely honest, I didn’t care if I lived or died. I certainly wasn’t actively trying to die, but I sure was apathetic to it. After a while, when I realized that I didn’t want to cause the pain of the loss that Lucas’s death caused me, I decided that I needed to be more careful not for me, but for those that cared about me and my well-being.
The son that I loved dearly ended his life. I have gone through bouts of depression, crying jags that I thought would never end, anger so fierce that I wanted to destroy everything in sight. I still have weeks where I feel down. Every day at some point I feel sadness at missing Lucas so much that I close my classroom to have a good cry.
At the same time, I am so grateful to be alive. So many of the daily anxieties that plagued me years ago are so far in the background I sometimes forget what they were. Obviously, if something happened to Mina or Tia, that would be the end of the world for me. Their well-being is of great concern to me and the motivation for me.
Other things that I put a lot of my emotional energy into are relationships. As a teacher, I care about my students, their happiness, and their feelings of success in my class. I care for my friends and their well-being as much as that is in my control. Apart from a narrow range of concerns, if it’s not on the list, I probably won’t be very emotionally invested in it.
One of the worst things that could happen to a parent happened to me and not only do I know what it feels like, I’m still here. There is little else to be afraid of.
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What a poignant read.