Lady Lazarus

Trama creates change you don't choose.

Healing creates change you do choose.

Michele Rosenthal

Twenty-seven years ago I moved into my home in west Toledo.  Labor Day weekend was a flurry of cleaning, unpacking, hanging pictures, and settling into a little A-frame I could finally call my own.  There were years when I was the only person who crossed the threshold.  Years when friends stopped by week after week.  Since 1999, a host of yoga students have retreated to the studio upstairs into what my friend, Barb, calls “the womb room” to find a moment’s peace in the midst of their very busy lives.  And for the past twelve months, I’ve mostly been a homebody, cocooning after an unexpected illness.

Since May I’ve been doing much better.  My energy is more consistent, and it’s not as challenging to think about plans for the future because I’m  healthy enough to follow through.  Still, for the past week, I've been weepy and tired, reliving moments from a year ago with such clarity it disturbs me, and I've had trouble sleeping or thinking clearly.

The reason didn’t really dawn on me until a few days ago when Steve and I were talking about our plans for the holiday weekend.  “What did we do last Labor Day?” I asked him.  Then I remembered.  “Oh yeah…I nearly died of sepsis.”

Back then, I thought that since I was healthy before I got sick, I’d be well in a few weeks.  But that didn’t happen.  I thought that after a follow-up outpatient surgery in October, I’d bounce back quickly.  That didn’t happen either.  What did set in was a lingering depression that surfaced whenever I was too tired to do anything but get up for an hour only to lie down on the couch and watch TV for the rest of the day.  On one particularly dark Sunday, I cried to Steve, “I should have died when I was in the hospital.  There’s nothing in my life to look forward to.  Nothing I do matters because nothing ever changes.”  

Steve supported me through that horrible moment, and several more, but there were many times I didn’t tell anyone how miserable I was.  How exhausted I felt.  How overwhelmed I was with the time it took to heal.  During the long winter, I holed up in the house and slept.  Read books.  Watched old movies.  Tried to meditate.  In February, when I finally accepted the fact that my healing journey would take as long as it needed to take, I realized that it was a blessing that nothing I had wanted to create had come to pass.  I didn’t have the time or energy to start a new job.  I didn’t have the money to make plans to move.  And I didn’t have the ability or desire to write anything.  All I could do was take things moment by moment, and over time, with patience and persistence, I got better.  

For the most part.

Anniversaries aren’t only about remembering special dates and celebrations.  We all have traumatic experiences which can get triggered by the change of seasons.  By a scent or a sound.  By a conversation or a coincidence.   Healing takes time and it’s often at the one year mark that a sea of emotions can rise up, startling us with its intensity.

Lately I’ve been viscerally reminded of my time in the emergency room by watching reruns of “E.R.”.  The other day Steve’s daughter was cutting  my grass and I remembered the trees outside my window on the sixth floor of the hospital and how magically the early autumn light shimmered on their leaves.  Last week I was talking to a friend who is the executor of my will and thought about one of the ICU nurses who asked if I wanted her to come to the hospital when the doctors weren’t sure I would survive the next twenty-four hours.   Memories come flooding back when I least expect them:  the way the oxygen tubes felt in my nose, the taste of lemon ice, the kindness of a nurse who removed my central line and the empathy of another one who removed the large bore IV’s in my arms that were painful beyond measure.  

What I mostly experienced over Labor Day weekend was the helplessness and unresolved despair I had buried last September in order to get well.   A year later it resurrected itself and wouldn’t be ignored.  This time, I willingly embraced the fear and sadness along with the gratitude I also felt for the E.R. doctor who diagnosed me.  The surgeon who saved my life.  The countless nurses who cared for me.  Steve's love and my friends' support which has buoyed me more than I can say.   

       Through my grief, through my tears, I continue healing.

   Just as a caterpillar reshapes itself into a butterfly without being witnessed, my transformation from near-death to new life has taken place within the peaceful solitude of my home.   This year, Labor Day weekend was a time to celebrate the journey of the young woman I was all those years ago who eagerly embraced her independence and the wiser woman I’m becoming who is finally ready to leave her chrysalis and embark on new adventures.

Click here for more information about healing through trauma anniversaries.