My story and journey through this part of my life has been troublesome. It is heavy. This part of my life and story has been one where hope can seem elusive. There is a weight in the air on most days.  And you move through the day as if you have a heavy load that you are carrying or extra weight in your body that can make it difficult to accomplish simple tasks. When you do move, it is labored and slow. 

There are days when hours can pass and you find yourself thinking of what was, and how easy life used to be before the accident. Yet you never seemed to grasp it back then. The ease and simplicity of life was sitting there like an unopened gift that you just passed by daily. Life used to be this light and easy thing that you just never acknowledged. Because you didn’t know anything different. Then the accident happens, and you reminisce on how precious and beautiful life can be when it’s simple and common. 

The only way through trauma like this, is forward. Hope calls you forward. It is there every day, even when you can’t feel it. Hope doesn’t need you to see it or realize that it is there. Oxygen doesn’t need you to acknowledge it’s existence to sustain your life each moment as you breathe.

Hope is a tool that you can pick up and use or pass by each day. Just like that beautiful life that was there before the accident. Hope is there when the sun shines and the sky is crystal clear and it is there when the world broods and the sky is grey and cold. 

What you must do each day is take a step forward into the day and pick up hope and use it even when it feels pointless. Hope is not only a tool that you use, but also something you practice and something you can even ride. It can take you from a difficult place to your next location in the process of healing and recovery. It can shoulder your burden for a day and make it easier to move.

Hope is part of our life force. Hope believes, it creates, it heals and restores. 

For me It’s important to acknowledge that this injury, this trauma is part of my life now It is part of my story. Once I realized that, once I learned that this story has always been mine, even before it happened, gave me perspective. The perspective showed me that I was chosen. This experience chose my strength, my family, my mindset as its home for a time. I realized that it’s ok to be angry, to be confused. This part of my story must be grieved. I have to cry and to even scream or yell at times. Emotions and feelings must be validated. They must be experienced even when it is inconvenient. I have learned to let the emotions come as they do, to experience them and let them pass through me to heal. 

An injury like brain trauma suffered by a loved one especially when it’s a child is one of the hardest injuries to navigate. It is a long process. We all hope that we are going to be the one to beat the system or odds. We start his process hoping that our experience will be fast and that we will be in and out of this quickly and back to life as it was. But healing an injured brain can take years. It can take many, many years. Patients need twenty-four-hour care, for years. Families that are not professionals in any of these areas are thrust into health care. It is very, very difficult. The physical needs are challenging enough but the mental and emotional challenges can often be even harder.  Often you see the physical areas grow and heal. But the emotions like depressions and loneliness can be trickier. They are a challenge that both the one in the accident and their caregivers can feel. 

Having a support group, a community is incredibly important. This process is confusing and frustrating and scary. Doctors often tell you that they don’t know the answers to the questions you ask. Even professionals that focus in this area say that every brain is different, and every injury affects these different brains in different ways. 

The things you learn about how the brain works and how miraculous and unrecognized each simple function we do each day is remarkable and overwhelming at the same time. But again, the best way through this is forward one day at a time.  Looking for ways to live life and experience joy and moments of beauty and value is incredibly important. Flowers still bloom, birds still sing, young love still grows. There is life and beauty all around us every day. We must allow ourselves to see the value of each day, the blessing and beauty even in the struggle. Amidst the pain there is strength to get through it, we just have to find it.

 We learn, study, listen, struggle, love, laugh and cry throughout the day. Then get up the next day and start all over again. 

Having people around you to listen and encourage and hurt along with you helps. Connecting to people that have worked through similar situations can be incredibly valuable. To not feel alone makes it a little easier. 

Someday the healing will be over, someday life will re-engage, and we will move on from this part of the story. I hope that I will be able to share what I’ve learned in this journey to make someone else’s trauma easier. To be the community that they need to understand and to make that day’s weight  a little lighter. I know that my sense of life’s value has grown deeper through this process. The weight of this road is something I would not wish on anyone. But, for those who are chosen to travel it, there is strength in weakness, there is laughter in tears and there is beauty from the ashes.

- DOUG BAILEY