Here is the piece you saw a couple of days ago when she was still very much in process. I am happy and more at peace with the outcome. What I wrote is also very much in process inside myself. I know what I mean to say but I haven’t quite hit it yet. Onward I go.
The thing that I am learning, as I go along with everything that has been and is happening to me these last couple of years, the more I realize that what will happen to us will happen, and I can only speak from my perspective. I know very well that people suffer far worse than I am experiencing and some of it is quite cruel and hard to see a way out of. And yet I think of the truly amazing people who have suffered the unimaginable and achieved what would seem the impossible. The first one that always comes to mind is Jean-Dominique Bauby. To do him, and his amazing achievement justice, I am quoting the Amazon description of his book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death…
“In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor-in-chief of French Elle, the father of two young children, a 44-year-old man known and loved for his wit, his style, and his impassioned approach to life. By the end of the year he was also the victim of a rare kind of stroke to the brainstem.
After 20 days in a coma, Bauby awoke into a body which had all but stopped working: only his left eye functioned, allowing him to see and, by blinking it, to make clear that his mind was unimpaired. Almost miraculously, he was soon able to express himself in the richest detail: dictating a word at a time, blinking to select each letter as the alphabet was recited to him slowly, over and over again. In the same way, he was able eventually to compose this extraordinary book.
By turns wistful, mischievous, angry, and witty, Bauby bears witness to his determination to live as fully in his mind as he had been able to do in his body. He explains the joy, and deep sadness, of seeing his children and of hearing his aged father’s voice on the phone. In magical sequences, he imagines traveling to other places and times and of lying next to the woman he loves. Fed only intravenously, he imagines preparing and tasting the full flavor of delectable dishes. Again and again he returns to an “inexhaustible reservoir of sensations,” keeping in touch with himself and the life around him.
Jean-Dominique Bauby died two days after the French publication of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. This book is a lasting testament to his life.“
I think of him and know that while there is every degree and type of experience imaginable for every human being who lives and dies, if what this man did was possible, I can be brave on the journey that is mine in this life. They made a remarkably beautiful film of the book which I am going to watch again this weekend — The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It is available on Amazon for rent.
And I think of the amazing Christopher Reeve who was known around the world as Superman but broke his neck in a horseback riding accident in 1995 and was paralyzed from the neck down spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair, and yet lived until 2004, working, acting, directing, and acting as an ardent activist for people living with disabilities.
We all know of so many stories. I count, among them, survivors of atrocities who lived long productive lives despite the horrors they had endured like the amazing Elie Wiesel who survived the holocaust and went on to write 57 books, win the Nobel Peace Prize, and so much more.
These are the stories that inspire me and drive me to do my work, to do the best that I can, despite whatever life brings. I don’t pretend to always manage it well, but it is with the stories of these and so many others held tenderly in my heart that I can get up each day and carry on and hope that through my work I can help others.
As to my interview yesterday it was really amazing and there’s so much I want to say about it but I am still digesting the experience. I will write to you about it over the weekend.
I am sending you so much love and so many blessings, always and always…
And a special aside — I am making this a public post to share with others in the hope that they might find solace in these stories, and if they like join us here at Patreon. My work, the deepest work in my heart, is to reach out to others, to help and to heal, in any way that I can in my life. And I thank you, again and always, my dear Patrons, for your support which makes my work possible. Please share this post with anyone you think might find it helpful.
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