Full Circle

Yesterday was a huge milestone.  We attended church together as a family for the first time since that shattering Sunday a month ago.  So much has happened in such a (relatively) short time, I feel like we have lived a whole lifetime in these 5 weeks.  It felt really good to be doing something so normal together.  I was worried that David would be overstimulated and need to leave after the first hour, but he was actually excited to be there and wanted to stay the whole time.  He loved it that everyone was happy to see him and wanted to talk to him (he loves to talk these days).  The tears flowed freely and he just kept saying to me how good everyone was and how he had no idea there were that many people who love us.  It’s a recurring theme in our conversations.  Whenever I mention a good deed someone has done for us, some act of service performed, some gift given, he tears up and is so grateful and feels so loved.  I cry along with him and we hold each other on our own little island of gratitude and humility.

Every time I look at him I feel like I’m witnessing a miracle.  The way he stands (and the fact that he stands at all), the way he holds himself, his facial expressions and body language, all of it is so him.  And much of what he says and does and prioritizes are still the same as well.  Even in all his chronic pain and brokenness and confusion he is constantly trying to do things to help me and is always asking me if I’m alright, if the baby is ok, if our kids are fine.  He has not once gotten truly angry with me (though there has been a fair amount of complaining and impatience at times) when I ask him to do his physical therapy exercises or when I correct a word he is saying wrong, or redirect him in a task.

HIs main concern right now is his poor eye.  Everything in his whole world is affected by not being able to use his right eye.  It wears down his ability to cope with all the other things that are happening with him, and hurts his confidence in his ability to perform tasks that he is fully capable of doing.  The last word on it was that there is still every chance it will recover, but it could take months.  And for David even an hour can feel like weeks.

The difficult thing for me continues to be that, while so much of him his still so similar to his pre-accident self, the things that have yet to recover make it feel like I’m living in some strange parallel existence, similar but not the same.  I am doing my best to incorporate activities and tasks and therapies that will help his brain re-make those connections and I truly have faith that he will again be fully my David.  But the truth is, even when he is fully healed, when this is all scarred over and finished, neither of us will ever really be the same as we were.  How could we be?  And, as painful as it is, and as much as I still grieve for what used to be,  I feel the shaping hand of our Father in all of this.  I am learning to trust in that, and to trust that He is creating for us something good in ways that would not have been attainable by any other means.