As the days are growing both colder and shorter here in the arctic Middle West, we tend to become a bit introspective. Much as our lives cease to exist out of doors, our minds turn inward and engage in a series of self-interrogations.
What's on our minds, you ask? Well, any number of mundane annoyances, like household chores and family obligations, can consume our conscious time these days. But it's those just-under-the-surface thoughts that are most troubling. It seems that the deepest days of autumn alert us to the certainty of five consecutive months of boredom that will soon be upon us. The first frost acts as a sad winter pantomime that suggests a much earlier time when you may not have made it 'til spring (remember the Grasshopper? He lived in Michigan). And thus, when being pelted by the season's first stinging hail storm, each summer-loving Michiganian wonders not only how they will occupy themselves all winter, but also whether they spent their warmer days wisely.
Autumn in Michigan is almost like Yom Kippur in Antarctica. As the darkness descends, we fret over the number of times the boat got used, whether we devoted sufficient time to camping, picnicking, and star-gazing, worried it may never lift again.
This fall I find myself more vulnerable than usual to such thoughts. I'll tell you no lies, my life has been great this year, I have little to whine about, and my naturally buoyant personality prevents me from being completely serious as I write all this. However -- as only a few of you are aware -- I experienced a rather life-altering event this Summer, the effects of which I'm still shaking off. In early summer, June the 13th to be precise, I was one of two victims of a rather horrific near-drowning. We survived, obviously, but we have both been left with lingering -- although widely different -- feelings about the event specifically, and life more broadly.
I had miraculously no physical signs of injury save bruises and cuts hidden under my clothes. But the accident took me out of commission for quite some time. Thesis, travel, work, family. Everything was shoved aside. I literally couldn't function that first month. I battled emotional and physical reactions to the stress. I struggled to follow the plot of TV commercials, started losing my hair, had no appetite, and was covered in rashes of unknown origin where the tree had been pressed against my body.
Desperate for relief, I soon replaced paralysis with constant, frenetic work, and was able to forget my experience for brief stretches by equating busyness to progress. This strategy allowed me to complete my thesis, pass my language exam, travel a bit, and smile when being sung "Happy Birthday." By all accounts I had recovered, but I longed to scream in the faces of passing strangers that they were lucky to see me, and that I was justified to feel rage. I tried exercise, therapy, baking, anything. But I still wanted to bark back at the neighbor's dogs, and I still couldn't process what had happened to me -- or was it what had nearly happened?
By August I was inundated with happy events. Erin was home, Aimee and Minh married, my big sister pregnant, and our "non-traditional" family enlarged. I felt real joy for all these things, and I was able to forget for longer stretches. Nightmares were less frequent, flash backs less gripping (thesis turned in!). Then I got a job.
As my time became less and less my own, I unwittingly invented new ways to distract myself - how about buying a 100 year old house this Fall?? It appears, as I write today, the purchase will fall through, and my job is settling down. So, when all of Summer's frivolity and activity have tapered off, I, like every other MidWesterner, am left to contemplate my life.
I cannot be sure that a day will ever come when I don't remember the way my mother looked, blurred but brilliantly visible, as my face was dragged below the rushing water, or the way it felt to be so completely helpless - to give up. But I cannot be entirely sure I want that day to come. The memories of the accident remind me not only to be grateful and intentional in all that I do, but also remind me of strength, family, and all those things I almost lost that day.
Rather unexpectedly, it has reminded me of Bobby, and how my story nearly became his. I was tortured for weeks by the idea that my friends were almost put through the pain of a second classmate's body being pulled from a river on the evening news. And while each October I unconsciously spend time thinking of all the things he has missed, this October I was closer to him than perhaps I had been in life, and felt his benign presence everywhere I went. I hesitate to discuss these thoughts with people, for fear that they - as many have - will respond with the apparently logical "Yes, that almost happened. But it didn't, you should be so thankful."
"But," I want to say, "I was grateful before, so what shall I be now??" And wouldn't it be so much easier if all I had to learn from this was gratitude?
While I have yet to process these events entirely, I do feel that Autumn will prove to be the perfect time for thinking them over again. And perhaps taking this second look, without hurry or the desire to "move on," might allow me to glean a little something from them. I hate to leave you with so few answers and so little conclusion, but I do hope to leave you with the urge to do a little more reflection than usual this Fall.
Oddly enough, this post began after unearthing a photo from Aimee's birthday 2 years ago that got me reminiscing. Take it as you will, but it was unplanned and not intended as a Reader's Digest "survivor's story." I spose it was just an open letter to the rain gods.
Seems like ages ago.
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