So I haven't written in a long time. I have recently, however began a new journey in my life and I find that I need an outlet to express myself once again. The last couple of months as I have been blogging for my sister left me realizing how much I enjoy it and so i decided to resurrect Didda's world, my little space to share with no one in particular or with some sorry sap that happens to read my ramblings, all that I am thinking and feeling about life.
Having a long relationship with the only man that I had ever loved before suddenly come to an end had left me feeling more vulnerable, lost and confused than I ever had been before. as we rode in the car to Aunt Geri's house I sat in the back seat listening to music and laughing with my sister Hannah over memories of when she was little. My life seemed so empty and lonely without Ryan (just a name that I made up since I don't want to use my his real name).
We got to Aunt Geri's and I got up on the tall tower to jump from the Rope swing. I was terrified of the thing. I had only ever had the courage to jump once or twice before and it had been several years before. But before we broke up Ryan had asked me to please not ride it. He felt like it was an accident waiting to happen. I had told him that I wouldn't but since we broke up I felt that his opinion didn't matter and it gave me a fiendish delight that I could do it now just to spite him. In fact I made sure to video myself jumping so that I could send it to him. (I know its horrible.) I stood there at the top of the 45 foot tower terrified to jump but determined to do it to prove a point. This is for Ryan I thought and then I jumped.
I fell swooping down dizzyingly close to the ground before the rope caught and swung me out high above the shallow pond. I could feel the adrenaline rush through my body and my legs were shaking when I climbed off the swing.
I went to talk with my sister Marinna just a few feet away. While we stood there talking I saw a body falling from the tower but it looked different somehow. Who ever had jumped went straight down and never swung out at all. Marinna said "I hope that isn't one of mine" and started to run towards the tower. I followed her thinking how grateful I was that I didn't have my own children there to worry about.
And then I saw Hannah's Yellow shirt lying on the sand. Her legs laying at crazy angles and a smudge of blood next to her face. She wasn't moving. I could hear someone screaming and I thought "why wont that person shut up," and then I realized it was me. All I could think of was that I couldn't do this. I couldn't lose my little sister this way. Marinna had gone to her head and was sitting next to her in the sand. "Vilate, go away" she said "if Hannah can hear I don't want her to hear you."
I turned and started wondering in circles trying to find somewhere to go where this would all go away and my life would be OK again. A cousin came to me then and lead me to a bench where I started shaking uncontrollably. Someone shouted that Hannah wasn't breathing, and someone called 911. Just then my parents arrived and my mother seeing me crying on the bench frantically started towards me all I could do was point to where Hannah lay in the sand and sob out her name. My cousin sat with her arms around me and began to pray quietly in my ear.
Soon my trembling stopped and I felt that I was in control enough that I could go be near Hannah to either help or be with her in her last moments.
When I got over there someone had turned her on to her back and straightened the leg that was obviously broken. She lay there breathing long rattling breathes that seemed to start down in her legs and roll through her body. Her eyelids were blue and her lips were blue and there were foaming bubbles coming from her mouth. She still wasn't moving at all. Marinna was holding her head and talking soothingly to her telling her to hang on that help was coming. A friend of the families was there who happened to be an EMT and he was preparing her by putting in an IV. I held the IV bag as it was the only thing I could see to do that could help. I could see his hands shaking and It increased my own fear. He was on a walkie talkie and he asked for an ETA on the ambulance. The reply came back 20 more min. My heart sank, I didn't think she would make it another five much less 20 minutes. "Can we expedite that" he asked and I knew he felt the same way I did.
The minutes seemed to drag by until finally we saw the ambulance barreling down the long dirt road. Calmly and what seemed to me irritatingly slowly the medical team loaded her onto a stretcher and into the ambulance and started off to the hospital. Mother called for my older brother to come drive us so we could follow them to the hospital. He was throwing up in the bushes and didn't seem any more calm than either mother or I so someone else drove and we headed to the little country hospital hoping that Hannah would still be alive when we got there.
As we sat in the waiting room all I could think about was that I needed Ryan there, that I couldn't do this without him. My battery on my phone was dead and I didn't have his number. I didn't know what to do with myself so I paced the hall way waiting for the Doctor to give us an update. Periodically someone would come out and inform us that they were trying to stabilize her and that as soon as she was able to would life flight her to a larger hospital in Murray.
I paced the hallway feeling traped by the walls that surrounded me and the situation that I had no control over.
Finally they told us that she wasn't going to stabilize and that they needed to just send her regardless of her condition. They warned us that the altitude changes could be fatal but that her condition was more serious than they could handle. They took us in to see her and to say goodbye. The flight team stood by waiting to load her in the helicopter. We asked if we could have a few moments alone with her but they were manually breathing for her and so we squeezed her hand told her to hang on and then we left.
The 3 hour drive to Murray hospital were filled with some of the deepest soul searching moments that I had experienced up to that point. As we drove the silence settled in around us and I wondered where God was and what I could say or do that would make him leave her with us. I thought of what promises I could make or what sins I could give up to bargain with him and I knew that nothing I could say or do would make any difference.
I wondered what I could do to get out of having to go through this experience. I wanted to just throw up my hands and say OK that's it you win and then be done but again there was nothing I could do. I realized that nothing I could ever do was going to bring Ryan back and nothing I could ever do was going to change the long lonely days, weeks, and possibly years ahead of me.
And then I wondered why we even try. If life is so much outside of our control and has and always will be, then why do we try so hard to hang on to things? Ive lost people before, Ive done hard things before. I know that life is sometimes really difficult and requires all that we have to give so why do I hang on to a false sense of my own ability to control things until a situation like this comes along to prove to me just how little control I actually do have.
Everyone kept telling me, its going to be OK. What ever happens its going to be OK. Is it really? And what does OK even mean? Life is just life. Its about experiences that are not OK and some that are wonderful but really all it is, is a series of experiences designed to shape our characters and test our growth. So what really is OK? and does it even matter if its all OK?
My brain scrambled to find its footing and to have something concrete to hang my framework of life on. I found it in the following two ideas
1.) Heavenly Father is in control and he has a plan. This life while it is just a series of events meant to teach us and help us grow, is not a random series of events. Its a well planned well prepared for series of events that was custom made for us (and I believe agreed to by us) before we were ever born. This plan that a loving and all knowing Heavenly Father has for us, is perfectly tailored to our needs. While I cant control what happens in any of these situations he can and he will.
I thought of all the times that I had seen his hand in my life and knew that against all odds he had been with me protected me, prepared me and guided me, and I knew that he would not leave me now. I thought of the words to the hymn How firm a foundation. "The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, I will not I can not desert to his foes. That soul though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never no never no never forsake.
That was my foundation. that was the one thing that I knew without a doubt, that I could rely on through whatever came. That's what allowed me to let go of trying to control these situations and move forward one step at a time.
2.) I know that because Heavenly Father knew that life can be hard, and sometimes overwhelming and that we would often feel alone and lost he gave us a guide book and a set of instructions and organized a worldwide organization of others that were going through experiences just like I am to work together and to help each other through this mortal experience. He set milestones and trail markers along the way, and he prepared special places where we could go to rest and receive comfort when they way became too hard. He gave us regular opportunities to reconnect with him and to renew promises and covenants with him to give us strength.
Those two things are my foundation. They are the two things that will never and can never change. They are the two things that can give me hope in any situation, that can give me peace when everything that I hold dear is threatened. These two things are what keeps me grounded and ready to move forward.
In spite of the seriousness of her condition, (a broken neck, broken back, 16 broken ribs, a broken femur, both lungs collapsed, punctured heart, ruptured bladder, a head injury paralysis on the entire left side of her body, and numerous other injuries) Hannah walked from the hospital to the car on the day she was released just one month and two days from the day she arrived in a helicopter on deaths door.
I watched her walk down the isle at our sisters wedding just a few days later and I marveled at the miracle that took place in front of my very eyes. Its a miracle that I thank Heavenly father for daily. As I had let go of trying to control, to keep her there with me, she had come back, she had been aloud to live. Ryan on the other hand didnt come back. I continue to have to learn to move forward without him. But it all just confirms what I learned that day on the way to the hospital. Sometimes things will go the way that we want them to and sometimes they wont but it doesnt change those things that are my rock, my foundation. It doesnt change what I know.
