This day finally marks a year some would consider as the day I hit my “rock bottom”.
Words can’t describe the cloudiness and tension throbbing in my head as I scrambled to get out of the house in time with everything I had. I may never know how damaged my brain really was that day. Or continues to be since. But my heart, besides being on the verge of exploding inside my chest, was screaming for the firefighters and paramedics who came to my rescue to get their truck and ambulance off my street before my oldest son would turn the corner in route from school and see his totally broken mother being hauled away for what would be several grueling nights in the cardiac unit at the hospital. The same hospital where, ironically, I was blessed with my youngest son years before.
It took me close to a year to muster the courage to seek out my medical records from that stay, but turns out that upon arrival, my enzyme levels were multiple times the normal functioning level. And I was essentially proceeding on a fast track toward death.
What followed would be several days of absolute horror. Horror during the five hour wait in the emergency room, extremely nauseated, shaking uncontrollably and so thirsty from dehydration that I dozed in and out of consciousness wondering how I had become “this person”. The person who would have to be confined to a bed with constant line of sight supervision to monitor possible seizures, resistance and dangerously elevated heart rate. The person so delusional from the inconceivable amount of medications that were trying to slow down the function of my brain while I was trying everything in my power to retain it. The person whose mind was trying to tell my body what to do, yet my body was too saturated with powerful chemicals to comprehend it. Plunging me deeper and deeper into insanity. The person “the eyes” would avoid as they met mine, but would be covering me with judgment as I closed my own in absolute shame… Hoping against hope to never be seen by them again…
On this day, as we turned the corner to leave my neighborhood in an ambulance never to be seen by the eyes of my son, I thanked God for sparing my children of such a heart wrenching memory. I have thanked Him many days since, although I know better than anyone on this green earth that just because neither of my boys saw me leave broken and addicted in an ambulance that day, that surely didn’t spare them from the 18 months of agony and terror they encountered while watching their mother slowly succumb to the evil curse that almost ripped me away from them and everything I had once lived for.
Since that day, and after a year of healing from the physical, emotional and mental anguish of this curse, I wake each morning with gratitude for the chance I have at life again. Since that day I have reconnected with all that I have loved in this life before I lost myself to the pain, regret and sadness that had taken over my entire being. Since that fateful day, which I acknowledge now as having been necessary in order for me to break away from the once unbreakable curse that all but consumed me, I have found amazement in the life I have here on this earth again. I see beauty in the trees and the mountains, I see peace in the sunrises and sunsets and I see faith and hope in the blue skies above.
My daily inspiration wanders around here…
And as I reflect on this past year of forgiveness and growth, and on the beautiful relationships that have been rekindled with my boys on a level deeper than I could have ever hoped for, I am blessed in the knowledge that I don’t have to remember that day a year ago as only being my “rock bottom”.
For everyday as I continue to gaze into the eyes of my children, and see the God-given gifts that they are, and I feel the renewed hope of becoming someone to them who has more to give in their lives than only God could ever fathom, I find love and purpose. Love in how my heart beats to see their hopes and dreams one day turn to reality. And purpose. Purpose in what has since been revealed to be my My Reason for Being.