"Caregiver Unmasked" a poem

“Caregiver Unmasked”
(a poem– Dedicated with love to Ema and *Rachel)

Rachel is a friend whose husband also suffers a TBI
How I weep for you, heart of my heart,

for you have been stolen away from me

and I am left with only a husk that bears

passing resemblance to the one I married.

With a terrible screech of tire and shattering

of clear glass, my-happily-ever-after fantasy

crashed head-on into the exhausting reality

of being your crutch, your nurse, your keeper

rather than your lover, your mate, your equal.

Days and nights I fight my fight as you sleep

the sleep of the unknowing. I groan, I grieve,

I sob wordless pleas and grunt raw prayers.

My tongue is now overgrown with callouses

from biting back bitter retorts to many callous

remarks made not by you, but by the Injury.

My heart drains daily like a never-healing

wound that I bind up with words worn thin

“For better, for worse; in sickness and health”

If I pour enough salty tears on you in the night

as I lay still, listening for– and dreading–your

next breath, will they bring you back, my heart?

When death–who did not have you before–

speaks through your lips, “I should have died.”

Peace-lover by nature, I rouse to war for your

life. I fight demons, doubts, dark depression

and despair. I fight, I fight, I fight. I fight for faith.

I fight fiercely for family. I fight for focus. I fight

to remember Who walks this valley with us,

and Who has promised a Heaven with every

tear personally wiped away. And Health.

And Hope personified. And I bathe my face

in the kind words of my friends and I pick

up pompoms to cheer your next unaided step.

–Linda S. Johnson

September 10, 2007

Repudiating Darkness

a letter to a girlfriend

Girlfriend,

You do sound exactly as I have/had been feeling for quite a while now. Feeling left out of life? out of His favor? like a forgotten child.
I know that quoting scripture and verbally reminding you that God is there however silent he might be -- does very little to satisfy your soul.

Could be the meno/peri-menopausal thing, could be female hormonal stuff, could be other physical problems but they affect our spiritual person regardless, don't they?

What has helped me and I don't mean that it's your answer -- and I know that for a long time I had trouble with this -- still do at times -- but, I am learning again to talk to Him during the day while I am doing a chore, pulling weeds, stacking tomato, squash from the garden...

Ooh.. He does know how I have felt and how I am feeling because I tell him -- though he already knows, he's the Dad -- I tell him just like a bratty child or pampered child complains to her mommy and or daddy -- with tears and a little trembling of the lower lip. And I know that he has taken me in his arms and scoops me up and tousles my already mussed hair with his hands like moms and dads do with their little ones. I know that he is smiling and shaking his head but at the same time he sends me the comfort that I need when I sorely need it.

As you say, last night that miracle -- it was for you -- and that is how we receive assurances sometimes -- even though we say, aaaaghh -- whatever.

Little whispers to God, Girlfriend -- he hears them.
Embr

the descent into darkness...

will come at one time or another when experiencing the loss of a loved one. Whether the loss be that of a loss of life through death or the loss of a loved one through illness, injury or otherwise -- putting off entering into this darkness can only make it worse in the long run.

After a good conversation with one of my sisters this past Sunday, we both realized that I had not yet mourned the loss of my husband --the one I knew before the accident that changed his and my life forever. Therefore, there was no way that I could stop mourning if I hadn't yet started the mourning process. So grieve, I must. Darkness, here I am ...

A letter, a thought, a promise

written aug. 20, 2007 12:15pm
Nine years ago today, August 20, 1998, Raul suffered this TBI (traumatic brain injury)in Salmon, Idaho while transporting fire equipment to a Salmon, Idaho firecamp site. Nine Years!
He was driving a beautiful white tractor and hauling an almost 40 foot trailer filled with supplies whose brakes failed and he ended up hitting another government truck -- utility truck-- and rolled his own. The two in the utility truck walked away fine. Raul had to be cut out of the truck losing consciousness once they had him out of the truck and transporting him to the ambulance. When he woke he found that he was in a Hospital.

It was this very hour on that day that I discovered he'd been in this accident one hour earlier.

Today. instead of mourning the loss of that man I married just four years earlier (September 24, 1994), I have decided to Celebrate. I do not yet know what we will be Celebrating -- but, Celebrate we will.

Life is not easy since this TBI came to live with us, but happier I know I can be and that is what I will strive for. I can't bring the original love of my life back home, but I know that I can get my happy back because I am the one who allowed it to separate from me. Not on purpose, and maybe just part of life and the journey but I think it is time to get Ema back -- a better Ema.

Nine years ago today . . . August 20, 1998

About a month shy of our fourth wedding anniversary, my husband Raul was in a work-related motor vehicle accident in Salmon, Idaho.
I arrived in Salmon later that evening with my good friend Gabby. Raul's employer, NIFC/BLM, had arranged for a room for us and we stayed at Solaas Bed and Breakfast in the next little town. Them having been able to find a room at all really was a miracle being that all rooms in that area were booked due to the raging fires that had brought my husband up there n the first place. The room became available when the couple who had booked it was not able to come up after all.

In celebration of our third wedding Anniversary just the year prior, my husband had booked a room at Salmon, Idaho's Greyhouse Inn for us and so I had become somewhat familiar with the beautiful drive up and the little town that now holds bittersweet memories for both of us.

As I write, the memory of that day is extremely vivid in my mind.

Driving him home from Steele Memorial Hospital in Salmon the next day we had no idea YET that this accident would result in Raul acquiring what is known as a Traumatic Brain Injury.

Nor would I have guessed that the man that I was driving home that day was not the man that I married almost 4 years ago. At the beginning the changes were there but I was unable to pinpoint exactly what those changes were. It was twenty days later that the real shocker would hit us all and we would discover that Raul not only suffered the mild concussion but a traumatic brain injury.

Nine years have passed and personally, I have experienced a multitude of feelings brought on as a result of the accident. There have been feelings of sadness, of anger, of disbelief, of hope, of helplessness, loneliness, pain, lots of numbness, extreme stress, confusion, frustration and the list goes on...certainly my faith and my faith in God has been challenged.

the beginning

Gardening is peaceful and relaxing. The time I spend there has helped me escape worries yet gives me the feeling of getting back to something basic and important.

Tending and keeping up with the garden has taught me how closely a garden of flowers or fruit resembles that of my garden or circle of friends and precious family.

I have noticed that when I leave my garden to fend for itself for 'a while', that it tends to grow grasses and weeds that if left alone will eventually choke off the young plants and drink and eat
the nutrients and water intended for the garden.

Something I've learned through weeding:

When I just started our vegetable garden I noticed that when I was down there on the ground for a good while, pulling each weed out by the roots, that it was difficult to stand upright without feeling great discomfort in my lower back. Sometimes I wanted to stay down to avoid the pain of straightening myself out.. is not that the way life works as well?