Are you strong enough?
Life takes a lot of strength to get through. And I don’t mean physical. Sure, you can run marathons, pump some iron, do yoga, eat 100 hot dogs in 10 minutes (gross, but I suppose that does take some sort of strength…and stomach stretching), and do your best physically.
What I’m talking about is inner strength; strength of your heart (not the actual bloody muscle), your soul, and your mind. Each day presents a new challenge. Be it something silly like not getting a jar open, being stuck in traffic and almost getting rear-ended, or receiving a phone call that one of your loved ones has passed. You can’t really prepare, you just have to react and deal with the challenge. Jar won’t open? You hit the lid with a knife, try hot water, swear at it, wrap a towel around it, then after 3 minutes, POP! Victory is yours! Those pickles taste that much better, don’t they? You get over it pretty quickly.
The receipt of heart-breaking or scary news hits you like a blast of freezing water. You may go into shock, you may either cry or scream, or perhaps, you internalize it and try to make sense of it. I have been in a few situations in my life that have gotten this type of reaction from me: passing of a grandmother, my divorce, the hospitalization of my nana, illness of my child, but the one that stands out the most in my mind is when both of my parents almost died from carbon monoxide poisoning.
March 17, 2006 (St. Patrick’s Day), 8 am.
I had just arrived at work, and was booting up my computer like any normal day. My cell phone rings. I see it’s my dad. I almost didn’t answer, because I was at work. But my gut answered for me. He never calls this early; he knows I’m at work, so I answered. The first words out of his mouth: “Julie, it’s your father. Your mother and I have been poisoned, we’re going to die.” Um, WHAT? Did he just say that? So I said “What are you talking about? What’s going on?” He continues to tell me that they were poisoned and the firemen were there, breaking windows, and that something was wrong and they had a CO2 leak. He was not making sense, stuttering and slurring as if he were drunk. He kept talking about the cats, and how the firemen found them, and they were on gas masks. (This is a hilarious image to think about NOW. In fact, my friends and I get a good laugh about it when we have a bad day…don’t worry, the cats are ok, they have gas masks. They make gas masks for cats? Yes, yes they do.) I basically had to “verbally bitch slap” him over the phone to get him to tell me something. Where’s mom?? He told me she had fallen and broken her ankle and was in the back of an ambulance to the hospital. Coincidentally, the same hospital I was born at. I said I would call him back. At this point, I was shaking so hard, gasping for breath over my cries and yelling. I felt sick. I had my head in my hand. I had attracted several co-workers outside of my cube. I called both brothers, no answer. I finally called my sister-in-law and asked her to call my dad to see if she could make any sense of what he was saying. She got just about the same reply I did. I was on another mission: to find my mom. A co-worker found the phone number for me, and I tried to compose myself as I dialed. Memorial Hospital ER? Yes, I am looking for my mom. I think she just got there in the ambulance….and before I could finish, the lady said she was right there. She put her on the phone. My mom was high as a kite. “Mom, are you ok??” “HI baby girl!! I’m ok. I’m sitting here in a toasty blankie. I love you. Bye!” Ok, well, at least I knew she was alive. After several hugs, and more crying and shaking, there was nothing I could do from Arizona, so I just had to calm down. Easier said than done.
That was the worst call I have ever received. Imagine losing one parent, but both at the same time, when they are so young and I am unprepared to live without them. I still can’t wrap my mind around that thought. After years of litigation, court dissertations, interviews, medical tests, and grief, my parents finally settled in court. They are both fairly healthy, even though the CO2 created some health problems, and sped up others, they are alive and kicking in Mexico. I guess Heaven wasn’t ready for them yet.
That said, going back to inner strength, I have found I have a lot of it, more than I give myself credit for. I may not show it on the outside, but somehow, I always get through things and end up on top. And sometimes I don’t even see it, people point it out. That’s the way I work: I freak out, overreact, internalize, let go, and then finally, accept. I never thought I’d get over my divorce, I did. I didn’t think I’d be able to be a single mom living on my own, I’m doing it. I have an incredible line of strong women in my family; I had to get my strength from somewhere. And just because I’m sensitive and emotional, doesn’t mean I am not a “tough” person. I can kick some serious ass when I have to.
"Strength does not come from physical capacity.
It comes from an indomitable will."
-Mahatma Gandhi
No comments:
Post a Comment