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To hear my life story you might assume I am a pessimist, and perhaps to some degree I am.
But will hold on to the feeling that I am an optimist until my dying breath. It is my firm belief that in life you can choose to laugh, or cry at any situation thrown your way, I now after 25 years choose laughter! It is after all said to be life's best medicine. Throughout my life I have beenburdened with stressful, depressing, and tragic life altering events. Like at age seven my father was driving drunk and put himself in a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. Or when I was a pre-teen and was raped by a boy that I would later have a science class with in the tenth grade. In 1999 on April Fool's Day the house I grew up in burnt to the ground in seventeen minutes flat. I have been addicted to cocaine, dependant on drugs to get me through the day. My boyfriend of three years held a knife to my neck one night when I was twenty three and threatened my life.I have been plagued my whole existence with severe anxiety, which some mornings makes it impossible to even get out of bed. Because of all the trauma I had endured I had become very pessimistic, I had settled into the fact that life would never treat me well. And then the most horrific event of my life happened, and perhaps my optimistic views came into play here; when I lost my son. My world was shaken to it's very core. And I came to realize that this moment in time would be no matter what, the worst of my life.
On February 10th, 2005, at 12:46 a.m. my little Eddie was born, weighing in at a mere 14.5 oz. and measuring just 11 inches long. He was completely perfect, only born to early; and not
meant for this world. I got to hold him, kiss him, fall in love with him, have him baptized,
and imagine what my life would have been like with him in it; and then at 4:00 a.m.; I got to
hand him back to the nurse so she could take him to the morgue.
When I was discharged from the hospital that same morning, I had to kiss him for the last
time. His eyes closed, his lips turned upward as if he were smiling at me, and he was colder
than cold. Kissing his tiny forehead, it was if I were pressing my lips against a block of ice
in the Arctic. It was at that very moment everything I knew about life flew out the window
of room 254. This is where I become an optimist.
I had a decision to make; I could let this one event ruin my life, or I could become a better
person because of it. So I gave myself one year to grieve for my son, twelve months to feel
any kind of way I wanted to. I could be sad, mad, angry, confused, selfish gloomy,
irrational, or despondent. 365 days to feel, grieve, be overcome with every emotion in the
world, mend my heartache; and then I would move on.
52 weeks to the day that my son died I put the past where it belonged, and began moving
forward. In the year I took to mourn I had plenty of time to reflect on life, and what it meant
to me. I realized that I had been through hell and back several times over, dealt with more
than some could tolerate. And still managed to come out on top. So I now live by one strict
rule:
In the game of life anything catastrophic that can happen ; will. And it's going to hurt,
injure, disfigure, crush, and sting. Life will devastate, confuse, and turn you around so you
don't know which way is up. But living is not about the misfortune, it's about how you deal
with the catastrophe you have been handed. Wounds heal, pain subsides, anxiety calms,
grief diminishes. And after it all, I've learned to live with a broken heart. So even though I
know there is another calamity waiting for me around the bend. I embrace it, because I
know after the heartache I will be a better, stronger, wiser woman.
To hear my life story you might assume I am a pessimist, and perhaps to some degree I am.
But will hold on to the feeling that I am an optimist until my dying breath. It is my firm belief that in life you can choose to laugh, or cry at any situation thrown your way, I now after 25 years choose laughter! It is after all said to be life's best medicine. Throughout my life I have beenburdened with stressful, depressing, and tragic life altering events. Like at age seven my father was driving drunk and put himself in a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. Or when I was a pre-teen and was raped by a boy that I would later have a science class with in the tenth grade. In 1999 on April Fool's Day the house I grew up in burnt to the ground in seventeen minutes flat. I have been addicted to cocaine, dependant on drugs to get me through the day. My boyfriend of three years held a knife to my neck one night when I was twenty three and threatened my life.I have been plagued my whole existence with severe anxiety, which some mornings makes it impossible to even get out of bed. Because of all the trauma I had endured I had become very pessimistic, I had settled into the fact that life would never treat me well. And then the most horrific event of my life happened, and perhaps my optimistic views came into play here; when I lost my son. My world was shaken to it's very core. And I came to realize that this moment in time would be no matter what, the worst of my life.
On February 10th, 2005, at 12:46 a.m. my little Eddie was born, weighing in at a mere 14.5 oz. and measuring just 11 inches long. He was completely perfect, only born to early; and not
meant for this world. I got to hold him, kiss him, fall in love with him, have him baptized,
and imagine what my life would have been like with him in it; and then at 4:00 a.m.; I got to
hand him back to the nurse so she could take him to the morgue.
When I was discharged from the hospital that same morning, I had to kiss him for the last
time. His eyes closed, his lips turned upward as if he were smiling at me, and he was colder
than cold. Kissing his tiny forehead, it was if I were pressing my lips against a block of ice
in the Arctic. It was at that very moment everything I knew about life flew out the window
of room 254. This is where I become an optimist.
I had a decision to make; I could let this one event ruin my life, or I could become a better
person because of it. So I gave myself one year to grieve for my son, twelve months to feel
any kind of way I wanted to. I could be sad, mad, angry, confused, selfish gloomy,
irrational, or despondent. 365 days to feel, grieve, be overcome with every emotion in the
world, mend my heartache; and then I would move on.
52 weeks to the day that my son died I put the past where it belonged, and began moving
forward. In the year I took to mourn I had plenty of time to reflect on life, and what it meant
to me. I realized that I had been through hell and back several times over, dealt with more
than some could tolerate. And still managed to come out on top. So I now live by one strict
rule:
In the game of life anything catastrophic that can happen ; will. And it's going to hurt,
injure, disfigure, crush, and sting. Life will devastate, confuse, and turn you around so you
don't know which way is up. But living is not about the misfortune, it's about how you deal
with the catastrophe you have been handed. Wounds heal, pain subsides, anxiety calms,
grief diminishes. And after it all, I've learned to live with a broken heart. So even though I
know there is another calamity waiting for me around the bend. I embrace it, because I
know after the heartache I will be a better, stronger, wiser woman.
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