Fifteen Years Later
Fifteen Years Later. A letter to my younger self.
There you are sleeping not knowing the phone is about to ring and change your life.
You’re about to learn some important lessons. It’s going to hurt. Really hurt. You’re not going to know if the decisions you make are the right ones. I suppose that’s one of the scariest parts of being a parent. That’s why I’m here fifteen years later. I want to tell you that when you pick up the phone your life won’t be the same. One thing I know for sure. What’s about to happen will make you a better person. I’ll explain.
You’re thirty-three years old, two kids, Arielle ten, Kai five, you didn’t want to leave them during Thanksgiving. Children weren’t allowed on the work vacation to Mexico. Adults only. You felt guilty. Surely everything would be fine. The kids would be with your parents, and you’d enjoy much needed time alone with your husband…
“Krista?”
“Dad?”
“There’s been an accident…we’re worried about Arielle.”
Breathe, heart beating, Eric staring, muffled voices on the other end, breathe. Her birth, she’s in my arms, my little girl gazing up at me….my baby girl. The worst moment of your life, frozen in time, you thought your father was telling you Arielle was dying.
“A bruise on her spinal cord?”
A bruise doesn’t sound that bad except that’s it’s on a spinal cord, and that’s very bad. No doctors will say it. The words are “Let’s wait and see if she’s able to move her legs.”
Arielle isn’t going to be able to walk anymore. A friend in the medical field will finally explain the seriousness of the bruise. That’s why they’re waiting to see if she can move her legs. She may be paralyzed.
“Paralyzed?”
Waiting. Waiting. “I want to go home.” Arielle’s pale, scared, wanting to get back to life, to her friends to the magic of Christmas. Her body is not the same. She can’t feel her legs. She can’t control her bladder. She can’t hop out of bed like she’s done since she was two.
Your world is upside down, spinning, twirling on its axis, and it feels as though there’s nowhere to turn for answers. Every moment is an unknown.
There you are trying to be strong, holding in everything you feel like you’ve learned to do since you were little. Be tough, stay strong, be positive, whatever you do, don’t let your children see you cry.
And the pain builds and builds until suddenly you’re standing in front of a stranger at Au Ban Pain tears streaming down your face.
Be strong for your daughter.
Anger comes easier than tears. That’s why when you call the insurance that you’ve paid for years, and they tell you they’re not covering the rehab Arielle needs you yell! “She’s paralyzed! She’s ten! What do you mean you’re not going to pay anything for rehab?”
Be strong.
The rehabilitation hospital, the one insurance covers, is dirty, they’re prisoners on the floor above, there’s a child screaming as she’s coming out of a coma, and a two-year-old who nearly drowned alone in the room next to yours. Where are his parents?
Merry Christmas.
Be strong.
Your friends are angels visiting, calling, showing you a love you didn’t understand. Your school, your principal, the teachers, students, and families donate time and money to help your family. You’ve never experienced such kindness from others.
Within the disaster, within the darkness, love shines from the caring of friends and strangers. It gives you hope.
Seven weeks snail by, and you’re all home again. You jump back into life, but everything has changed — the life you knew gone. There are questions.
Will she ever walk?
Do you coddle her or expect her to be independent?
Do you change your expectations for her future?
Do you tell her this happened for a reason?
Do you sell your two-story house even though she doesn’t want you to?
Do you seek the best rehab and take her out of school for months of therapy?
Will she grow up and ask why we didn’t keep her in physical therapy for years never giving up on the possibility of walking…
Or
Will the message she receives from so much physical therapy be that she’s never whole or never normal unless she walks?
What is the most important lesson to teach a child?
Self-Acceptance. Self-acceptance EXACTLY AS YOU ARE.
You still can’t cry, but you can write. You can write about all the pain you feel. You can write about all you’ve learned. You can write about everything that frightens you until it doesn’t seem as scary as it did before. And you can teach your children to write because maybe while you were trying to be so strong, you sent the message that it’s bad to be vulnerable. It’s not. Vulnerability is strength.
The phone’s ringing.
I’ll hurry.
You will find the answers to your questions. You will make mistakes. You will learn it’s okay to tell your children, “I’m sorry.” You will raise Arielle to be independent and to accept herself exactly how she is and not wish to be any different and in doing so, you too will learn the same lesson. Yeah, remember when I said what’s about to happen will make you a better person? You are. Now, be brave, wake up, and answer the phone. Your life’s about to change.
“Hello?”
A Letter To My Newly Injured Self by Arielle Rausin
Dear Arielle,
You are probably freaking out, rightly so. Your life has just changed in a BIG way. But fear not, fifteen years from now you will be living and pursuing your dream! I’m sure that sounds kind of crazy because you just lost the ability to walk and everything, but just trust me, the universe has some amazing things in store for you contingent on you working hard and keeping a positive attitude.
But today I’d like to tell you some things though that I wish I knew all those years ago.
First, it’s ok to be pissed off. When it takes twenty minutes to go to the bathroom now, and you must do arm exercises daily, so you can build upper body strength just to lift your body in and out of the car it’s natural to get mad. Feel that anger, but don’t let it consume you. Find an outlet. Join a sport, become friends with other people in wheelchairs, talk to your close friends about the problems you have and things you feel.
For way too long I(you) would not talk to my friends about my frustrations of being in a wheelchair. I could talk to them about boy problems or school problems, but I never vocalized how crappy it felt to be a teenager and wet the bed regularly, or how angry it made me when complete strangers would pity me. It wasn’t until college where I made lots of new friends, some in chairs and some not, that I finally felt secure enough to talk about these feelings. What I didn’t know then was that talking about those things sets you free. Brené Brown has a great quote, “Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.” Knowing you’re not alone in those struggles will take a huge weight off your chest. When you realize that your friends and family will still love you even though your body does some really embarrassing crap sometimes the shame you feel about your unique body will dissipate.
Besides recognizing your anger and talking about those feelings, I also want you to know that you deserve everything that people who walk have access to. You will face obstacles, many, many barriers and it will be easy to look at the challenge, feel defeated, and roll away feeling bad for yourself. What’s much harder is to look at that challenge, brainstorm ways to overcome it, and then actually follow through and accomplish it. This will require fighting. Sometimes it will be a law, sometimes it will be close-minded people, and sometimes it will be a tiny voice in your head telling you it’s not worth it. But it is worth it. For every single thing you make accessible for yourself, you also make accessible for the millions of others that are or will be in your shoes.
Thoughts will cross your mind like, “it’s not worth all the trouble and money to make this accessible for me” like the city making a path down to the shoreline at the beach, or a business adding a ramp to their main entrance, but that’s not true. You are worth it. You deserve to go where everyone else can go. AND most importantly, it’s not just for you! It’s for the huge 10% of the global population that has a disability. Ten percent! Remember that, and fight for that. Every change you make happen makes life that much easier for the next generation. Just like I’m thankful for all the amazing people who fought for decades to create the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), fight for the amazing people who will come after you.
Finally, I want to tell you that you are so blessed. You are so privileged. You’re going to get the message from society that you are broken. That you are injured and need to be cured. Strangers will see the wheelchair and feel so bad for you that they will tell you that out loud in public. People you’ve never met will approach you and start praying for your healing. But you are perfect the way you are, beautiful girl. You are capable of anything you put your mind to, your body is not a limiting factor. Becoming able to walk again will not make you happy, loving yourself no matter what will make you happy. Gaining back the ability to walk will make you like the other 90% of the population, but who wants to fit in anyway? No one has ever created positive change by following the norm. I know it sounds difficult, but embrace your new body, learn to love all of its parts even though they don’t operate as before. You are blessed with so much. You have the most supportive family, the most loving friends, a big ‘ole brain full of incredible ideas, and an altogether amazing life. So be brave and go out there and live it!
Love Always,
Arielle
