To Drive Away the Dark

When darkness finds you, the only way out of it is through it. You have to breath it in and push it out.

I've been talking a lot about love and forgiveness and interconnectedness, and all of that stuff is what I am bringing out of this darkness.

But it was still dark. I woke up on a vent and didn't remember what happened to me. And then in the next second I did. And I didn't want it to be real. I wanted it all to go away.

I woke up in the middle of the night in a darkened hospital and the drugs that kept me alive had me living the strangest, horrible things... One night I was on a leaky cargo freighter that was about to explode. I could hear the water dripping and I felt the damp splashes on my skin. I smelled the rusty metal and tasted the salty brine. I had ten minutes to get off the ship, only I couldn't move my legs! My heart was racing... I worked up a sweat swinging the unusable appendages over the side of the bed...

And then a nurse was patting my hand, reminding me that I promised not to try to get out of bed again, and I kind of remembered that, but I'd never seen her before and I didn't know if she was really a nurse or not. The night terrors filled me with a new appreciation for what the word 'terror' means and I hope none of you ever discover it. I held tightly to the call button each night, as the scene descended and I held onto the images of those I loved who were safe in their homes, thinking of me...

Every night was a different horror. Not that the day was better. Dressing changes meant five people pulling and flipping and debriding me as I tried not to cry, getting pumped full of fentanyl every ten minutes just so I didn't scream. And then they would want me to get out of bed on legs that didn't work and I couldn't believe them when they said it would come with time.

But I had to. I had to find faith. To get through.

At night I played Bach's concertos for the cello, as performed by Yo Yo Ma. I know each note intimately, using them to weave a tapestry of light, and I focused instead on building new skin cells, each a tiny filament blooming in the room and covering my skin until music and flesh created something new.

And the day came that I walked again. I am still walking out of the darkness, but every day the light I go towards is brighter.