Day two: Interruptions Happen

Obviously, this is the hardest part of an essay I have ever written. I am not sure how it fits—or where it will eventually go. But the giant victory is simply being able to put thoughts and words together again into something meaningful.

Thanks to a relapse from the stroke, my journey since the head-on collision has now reached its fourth month—120 days—and I am finally attempting to write about the entire experience.

What began as a two-day hospital stay evolved into a month in a wheelchair, recovering from fractured bones, scrapes, bruises, and days and nights of extreme pain.

What was not seen in those initial scans was the beginning of a brain bleed that would manifest itself weeks later. My condition was probably best described by Sherri: I was “in a fog.”

Surgery worked. Slowly, day by day, progress returned, along with many of my familiar habits and routines.

In the midst of intensive reading and studying, I embraced the idea that the brain has the ability to heal. For me, that meant more sleep, more naps, fewer demands, and avoiding stressful situations. I anxiously changed whatever I could, hoping the medical research I was reading could somehow work for me.

Ongoing brain scans provided hope for the doctors, for our family, and, of course, for me.

If I thought I had been alone with my thoughts during the first season of recovery, now it became very real. There was no cast to watch come off. No scar that could tell me my brain was healing. Much of this recovery was happening somewhere inside me, beyond my ability to see it.

And somewhere in these 120 days, I began thinking differently about time.

Throughout Scripture there are seasons of waiting—forty days in the wilderness, forty days on the mountain, long seasons when God's people were simply called to wait, trust, and remain. Jesus used an even simpler word: abide. “Abide in me, and I in you.” — John 15:4.

I began thinking about the words that surround that idea: remain, stay, abide, tarry, dwell.

Maybe that is where I am right now.

Not rushing toward the future. Occasionally looking back at the past. But mostly learning to remain where I am—to allow my body and brain the time they need to heal, and to pay attention to what is happening around me while I wait.

And what I have discovered around me is people.

People who prayed. People who called. People who visited. People who sent notes, brought food, offered rides, asked questions, listened, worried, encouraged, and sometimes simply reminded me that I was not walking through these 120 days alone.

Perhaps that has been one of the unexpected gifts of this interruption.

So, for those of you receiving this, thank you.

Thank you for being part of these 120 days. Thank you for caring for Sherri and me. Thank you for your prayers, encouragement, patience, friendship, and presence.

I don't know exactly what the next part of this story will look like. I am learning that maybe I don't need to know yet.

For now, I can remain.

I can abide.

I can be thankful.

And perhaps the greatest victory of all is that I am still here—and still able to write these words to you.