A story I need to share
By: Edy Morales
August 12, 2021
Who I have no consequences for now. What I’ve come and how it gets altered me, is.
Twenty-six years ago, it sounds as if it was just yesterday. An emergency room doctor said the words: How do you feel?
Do you remember what took place
My first thoughts were, How could I forget?
I jumped into the water, and I felt something snap in my neck.
It sounded not unlike a guitar string that was wound up too tight.
I remember struggling to move and I was drowning.
Not the memories I wanted to remember, but grateful for the memories I had left considering the gravity of my current situation.
After enduring the doctor’s questions, I noticed that my hands and my arms were not moving.
This is so unlike me since being Latin using gestures goes hand in hand with talking.
Muddled up, I didn’t have time to think about that.
It occupied me with answering questions that brought the doctor to the conclusion that there was no severe trauma to the brain.
God is wonderful.
WHY-ME?
Before this life-shifting experience, I say to myself was a nice guy.
All-around cool individual, mellow with the girls and a Fred Astaire on the dance floor. An acquaintance to those I cared for.
Yet, there was nothing more significant in my life than my daughters, Jennifer Crystal, and Jennifer Marie.
Yeah, I figure out they both have the same first name, but that’s a whole different story.
I was in the prime of my life. Living the dream, I owned a home renovation company and life was fun.
That is, until the unforgettable day when life threw me a curveball.
EMOTIONAL MAYHEM
At the beginning of this account, I mentioned; “twenty-six years as if it were just yesterday.”
That’s because, on July 11, 1986, I had a tragic accident and became a quadriplegic.
I was only twenty-six years old. Now fifty-two years of age. I have spent half my life in a wheelchair.
Not a simple task, yet I wrote it about my capabilities. Not have I become compliant with my disability.
Being paralyzed is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. In the beginning, I was mad at God.
I did not understand how he would allow this to happen to me.
In my depressed state, I thought this was a cruel joke, and that I was being punished for all the things I had ever done.
Delusional, I visualized myself sitting in my wheelchair staring out my window watching everybody doing on about their daily lives.
The children playing outside in the fields, running, jumping living normal lives.
How I longed to be a part of that again.
REVELATION
After having to sit out half my lifetime, I conceded to the revelation that was an imperfect human.
We all have this type of impairment or physical limitation.
So I ponder, should I dwell on pending death or physical impairment, or should I try living my life to the fullest?
“Mr. Valentino, Mr. Valentino, do you understand what I’m telling you? You paralyzed!”
I could see the doctor’s mouth moving, but at that moment my brain was selecting only what it wanted to hear until I heard him say the word “permanent, disabled”.
This severed your spinal cord at the C-4 and C-5 level you cannot walk again and most likely you will need a respirator to continue breathing.”
Overwhelmed by emotions, I cried out, I’m only twenty-six old. I got a wife, two kids to care for.
Why did this happen to me, why me? Why God, Out of despair, I beg my doctor to be merciful and put me to sleep forever.
DISTRAUGHT WIFE
I cannot imagine what you are going through, but my job as a doctor is to save lives, not to end them.
We stabilized your vital signs. Would you like to see your wife?” “Does she know, doc? That I’m paralyzed?” “We had to stabilize your head and neck”.
The procedure was complex, and we needed her consent. So yes, she knows.
I felted queasy, as if someone punched me in the pit of my stomach. I awaited her presence.
I hear the nurse outside in the hallway directing my wife towards my room.
Her feet advancing, then she stops. Our eyes meet and a flood of tears streamed down our faces.
We had been married for only eight months.
No matter how hard we tried to communicate, it was impossible.
The lump in our throats would not concede it.
She touched my hand, lifted it to her lips, and kissed me.
I perceived nothing! I smiled while trying to hide my emotions.
ENDURANCE
It has been written, God will not permit you more than you endure. My perseverance was about to be tested.
Three months passed. It’s been touch and work and to make things worse, the doctor needs to wean me off the respirator.
Either that or depend on it to inhale for me. Too many nights I hear the respirators pumping, incorporating air into my lungs.
Fearing that at any point, it shut off. I was resolute in accomplishing breathing in my lungs.
I turned to the one I thought has abandoned me. I prayed: “Almighty God, forgive me for my idea of thinking and perception you were punishing me.
I realize that God’s abundance in Mercy and Loving-Kindness won’t do this.
You teach us that unforeseen circumstances befall us all. I believed this to be so.
If I’m to begin a new journey in existence without the power to walk or the use of my hands, I can recognize that.
Please God, grant me the power to meditate, breathe and talk on my own.”
I had never spoken to God with such sincerity and conviction.
Yet he answered my plea when a month later I breathed on my own.
My initial conclusion: “I wonder how Adam must go through when he held in his first breath.”
FAMILY
After two-and-a-half months in intensive care, I’m being transferred to a regular hospital floor.
It was as if being released from solitary confinement.
That may sound somewhat overstep, but it restricted me to two visitors an hour and for only a fifteen-minute visit.
Trust me, in a life-changing situation like this, having group support is the first step towards the healing process.
As the times followed, I immersed myself with my people and, distraught; they professed a passive attitude.
To my family, they raised my spirits and grant me the strength to endure. I wished they would never leave.
Yet, I supposed I would embark on a venture that mental and spirit I was not prepared for.
To be incapacitated and the fear of being alone!
LONELINESS
Loneliness would come to see me like an old friend late at night when the halls of the hospital were deserted.
There was a hush of voices and distorted, daunting sounds of hospital equipment that echoed through the corridors.
The lit hallways cast shadowy figures by my door as the nurses would pass by, making their nightly rounds.
It has become difficult for me to fall asleep.
Since the accident, my brain would not shut down.
I’m thinking if only I would not have stayed home.
If only I had listed. If, if, if… So many probabilities, but the outcome has was established.
My mind just needs to accept it. I suffered from dream deprivation. Time did not stop for me.
Days turned into months. Months turned into years. It seemed like a never-ending cycle of time.
I reminisced about my past and I felt ashamed. I lived a frivolous life. If I world has died at that moment, it would have been of no consequence.
What a waste of human life. For the first time, I welcomed God’s judgment with open arms.
To this day, I am befuddled. God did not forsake me and, in due time, I healed.
The doctors mended my broken collar, but there was much disarray in my perceiving body and heart.
I get to terms with my injury and even though getting up every morning is a challenge, I’m still glad to be alive.
Indeed, I don’t have all my physical capabilities, but it has endowed me with other abilities.
I can interpret and see things in a different light. They blessed me with the freedom to raise my two daughters and watched them become mothers.
Blessed with the space of observing my grandchildren grow up.
To have exceptional friends, one in particular: “Manuel Perez” who opened my mind to figure out what genuine friendship is all about.
He passed away too early in life. He shaped and influenced me in a way I am sure he would be proud of.
“Michael Mendez” my guide who has saved me more than once from the brink of insanity.
No matter how bad the storm he has always been my guiding light.
To the countless others who showed an interest in me and turned into an important part of my journey.
The forgotten ones: Doctors, nurses, therapists, and caregivers who thought their dedication pushed me beyond my so-called limitations.
And foremost, I extend thanks to Almighty God that I am still here. I will never give up on my try to regain what I have lost.
My faith impels me to recognize that there is something greater in store for all those who are affected, who lost loved ones, or carry heavy burdens.
The word of God teaches us to gain confidence.
To believe in things not yet revealed to us.
The last book of the Bible, (Revelations 21:1–5) reads: “The tent of God is with humanity and he will live with them, and they will be his peoples. And God himself will with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes and death will be no more nighter will mount nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things will pass away.” “Look! I am making all events new.”
God’s original purpose has not changed.
Imagine living in a system without substantial limitations or boundaries. Death will cease to exist. That time is close at hand.
Until then, the sparkle in my views has not dimmed.
Every time I struggled to defy my physical limitations and encourage all those whose names are of no consequence, to be motivated to do the same.
Remember, every day that passes is a day closer to Paradise.
Until then, strive to be not good but excellent with whatever fits you have received.
