“Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle.”— Christian D. Larson

Somewhere along the way I got lost in the healing process. There have been so many ups and downs. I have often felt disoriented. Confused. I lost faith in myself, and began looking to others for answers. Sometimes for even the most simple of questions. One day I looked around me and I realized I had arrived somewhere. I did not really know how I got there. I looked in the mirror and saw someone I did not really know. It is in moments like these that we realize that we have to start taking care of ourselves. We have to start trusting our instincts again. We have to believe we know what is best for us. That we know what we need to heal. After falling apart, and putting myself back together, I am learning to believe in myself again. To trust me.

The healers. The doctors, the nurses and all those who care for us along the way. The supporters who support. They can only help carry the load for so long. Then. Then it becomes up to us. The path before us has been decided without consultation. It no longer matters. The path we are on is the path we are. There have been people who have walked with me. I have been supported by them. They would continue to help. At some point though. Our supporters. They have to let us go. They have to release us. We have to learn to trust our own shaky legs again. We must carry on without them always beside us. We are used to them being there. We have grown accustomed to asking for help. We wish they would stay with us. That they would help us make our choices. That they would walk with us longer. If they do though. They become a crutch. Something that we get used to leaning on in order to support ourselves. Something to keep us from falling. But this begins to hold us back instead of propelling us forward. We learn to trust them to tell us the right way to go. Instead of trusting our own sense of direction. We trust their gut instead of our own. This becomes unhealthy. It starts to make us sick again.

The true healers. They know when it is time to heal us. They know when it is time to let go. They know when it is time to let us stand on our own feet. They know when it is time for us to fly again. To feel the beauty of the wind beneath our wings. Though we may at first falter, we will find our stride. We will learn to trust that we will not let ourselves fall. We have found our strength again. It is time to soar like we used to. To remember our own power. To touch the sun, and remember its warmth upon our faces. To trust our own wings. To know that they are our own. To understand that we can really only learn to fly when we do it on our own steam. When we trust in a power that has never left us. It has remained with us always. Through it all. Watching. Waiting. Ready. We just needed to heal enough to see it. To see ourselves.

We fell into a bit of a routine in the hospital. In those last days. It did not take very long really. It is crazy how quickly the abnormal can become almost normal. We adapt. As humans, we are so adaptable, that in even the strangest of circumstances, we can often find our way. I would leave Chris every night at around ten or ten-thirty. When all was done for the day and it was time for him to sleep. I would go back to the work crew house and crawl into bed. My mind would be on Chris, and our two children who I was missing so badly. Toward the end of Chris’ time in the hospital, the two of them had gotten the sickest they had ever been and have been up to now. They caught the most terrible flu, and could not keep much down for days. Throwing up all during the day and into the night. My son had to be taken to the walk-in clinic twice and to the ER once. He was given medicine that would help his body to take in sustenance. They almost called the ambulance. It almost broke me. Chris in the hospital, my children sick, and me so far from home. I wished I could hold them in my arms and make them better. My sister and Mom had to do this for me.

I wonder if it was the stress. Did it make them sicker? They would have been surrounded by worry. I had left them so abruptly. I wondered if they felt I had abandoned them. I knew that my sister and mother were caring for them in every way that was possible. That they loved them and would keep them safe for us. For the time being. It would have to be their arms that cradled my babies.

When the mornings came, I would wake up from a black, dreamless sleep, have a shower and head back to the hospital. Chris was getting better at caring for himself. I would come in and find that he had made his own way to the shower, and he had begrudgingly had his first coffee of the day before I had arrived with the good stuff. We would lie in his hospital bed and watch movies together. He was healing. I started to believe it. Though I still worried about infection from the puncture wound, and the risk of blood clots, I started to breathe just a little bit easier. And then, the doctors and the nurses started talking about home. Home. Such a beautiful word when one has been away too long. It would still be a long road. There was still a lot of healing left to do. It could be done at home though. He could heal from there. Our days at the hospital were coming to an end. We would have to depend on one another now. He would have to depend on me. The doctors and nurses who had so diligently and gently cared for him would no longer be there. A new patient would be laying in his bed. I had to trust that I was capable. He had to trust that he was capable as well. It would be up to us.

Sometimes we do not know what we can do. We do not always know the strength we have. There are days we feel we are at our weakest, but really, it is our strength that is carrying us through. We have to have faith in ourselves. Though it is in losing faith and trust in ourselves that we somehow, on the other side, find our true faith and our true trust in all that we are. We have seen ourselves on the battlefield. We have watched ourselves fight. Fall and pick ourselves up. We do somehow make it through the toughest of times when all of our fears come together and knock upon our doors. We may hide from them for a while. We may shiver in fear for what seems an eternity. Then, one day something changes. We no longer hide from our fears. We do not live in that place any more. Instead, we remember that we are worthy. That we do have faith in our abilities. We remember we are strong, and with that, we pull our shoulders back and we lift our heads high. We throw open the door and embrace that fear that held us frozen for so long, with open hearts. At that moment, we learn what true strength truly means. Having the courage to trust in ourselves again. To trust our wings. To fly.