Suffocating
I wrote this about eight years ago and it describes how I felt when we first learned that our son was autistic. It was going to be the beginning of a book about our journey with special needs children and the ministry, but I guess I forgot about it. I found it tonight while searching for another file so thought I would share it on my blog.
I am suffocating. Trapped by circumstances, plunged beneath the swirling waves of life by burdens, desperately struggling for that life giving breath…but it will not come. My chest is weighted down by the crushing blows of reality. “This can’t be happening to me,” I try to say, but my mind is unable to will my mouth in motion. All that I can do is…exist. For just this moment in time I must exist. There is no thought of the next moment or the next. All that I had was gone; all that I had hoped for is now at the bottom of this great swirling tide of my circumstances and burdens.
My body is numb. I am actually sitting, I think. I can feel…no, not feel…sense. I can sense that my body is sitting somewhere. My body is somewhere I think. My body is somewhere safe, but my mind is numb. My body can still feel. I can feel. I feel the cool air flowing down from the air vent just feet above me. I can feel the warmth of sunlight piercing through a nearby window. My body is not numb…I can still feel. But the dawning reality that my body is somewhere safe and can still feel does not remove the numbness. I still cannot move. I still cannot breathe. Why? Why? Why?
Nothing. Just an immense emptiness. A swirling vortex of chaotic emptiness. That’s not right either. It’s not emptiness. The chaos is not emanating from nothing, but, rather, everything. That’s the right word. Everything. My mind is simply unable to grasp hold of anything because everything is crashing in on me: one tremendous wave after another. I know that it desires to destroy me. To crush me and sweep me away like a grain of sand lost in the violent crush of the coming tide. Ripped from the safety of the ocean floor it is flailed over and under and around through the foaming mouth of a ferocious, ominous tidal wave. There is no hope of ever returning to that same soft spot where it once lay. The entire existence of that single grain has forever been uprooted and shifted to a new reality.
It is just at this moment that the phone rings. My right arm mechanically rises to answer it. See, my body is working and so must my mind. I still have no control. My body is simply reacting to normal stimuli. The phone rings, your arm reaches out, you grab the receiver, you say hello. That is just how it is done. Nobody teaches these things, our bodies simply know how to do it. And just as automatic my mouth utters two mind shattering syllables, “Hello.”
The weight seems to shift as I am once again able to feel the effect of air traveling down my lungs. I gasp in an effort to get as much as I can…and then I sob. Finally my mind and body are reunited as the tears burst their dam and pour down my once dry cheeks. My mind says exhale and my body shutters in spasms of unrelenting sobs. My mind says inhale and my body gasps for every ounce of oxygen available. I am no longer suffocating. I do exist. Somewhere.
Many months later I am able to look back and see the events more clearly. It is amazing how sometimes our vision is so fuzzy during the present, but crystal clear later. The present can become so cluttered with the activities of day to day life that we fail to see the life around us. My story may not be any different than a thousand others, but it is unique to me. Nobody else has ever felt the way I have felt. Nobody else can ever understand what I was feeling, or not feeling at that particular moment. And this has better helped me to understand how inadequate I am when dealing with such moments in the lives of others. No, I do not know how they feel. How can I? I can speculate based on my experiences, but my situation was nothing like theirs. I can only hope to be the person on the other end of the phone line that brings them back.
I am suffocating. Trapped by circumstances, plunged beneath the swirling waves of life by burdens, desperately struggling for that life giving breath…but it will not come. My chest is weighted down by the crushing blows of reality. “This can’t be happening to me,” I try to say, but my mind is unable to will my mouth in motion. All that I can do is…exist. For just this moment in time I must exist. There is no thought of the next moment or the next. All that I had was gone; all that I had hoped for is now at the bottom of this great swirling tide of my circumstances and burdens.
My body is numb. I am actually sitting, I think. I can feel…no, not feel…sense. I can sense that my body is sitting somewhere. My body is somewhere I think. My body is somewhere safe, but my mind is numb. My body can still feel. I can feel. I feel the cool air flowing down from the air vent just feet above me. I can feel the warmth of sunlight piercing through a nearby window. My body is not numb…I can still feel. But the dawning reality that my body is somewhere safe and can still feel does not remove the numbness. I still cannot move. I still cannot breathe. Why? Why? Why?
Nothing. Just an immense emptiness. A swirling vortex of chaotic emptiness. That’s not right either. It’s not emptiness. The chaos is not emanating from nothing, but, rather, everything. That’s the right word. Everything. My mind is simply unable to grasp hold of anything because everything is crashing in on me: one tremendous wave after another. I know that it desires to destroy me. To crush me and sweep me away like a grain of sand lost in the violent crush of the coming tide. Ripped from the safety of the ocean floor it is flailed over and under and around through the foaming mouth of a ferocious, ominous tidal wave. There is no hope of ever returning to that same soft spot where it once lay. The entire existence of that single grain has forever been uprooted and shifted to a new reality.
It is just at this moment that the phone rings. My right arm mechanically rises to answer it. See, my body is working and so must my mind. I still have no control. My body is simply reacting to normal stimuli. The phone rings, your arm reaches out, you grab the receiver, you say hello. That is just how it is done. Nobody teaches these things, our bodies simply know how to do it. And just as automatic my mouth utters two mind shattering syllables, “Hello.”
The weight seems to shift as I am once again able to feel the effect of air traveling down my lungs. I gasp in an effort to get as much as I can…and then I sob. Finally my mind and body are reunited as the tears burst their dam and pour down my once dry cheeks. My mind says exhale and my body shutters in spasms of unrelenting sobs. My mind says inhale and my body gasps for every ounce of oxygen available. I am no longer suffocating. I do exist. Somewhere.
Many months later I am able to look back and see the events more clearly. It is amazing how sometimes our vision is so fuzzy during the present, but crystal clear later. The present can become so cluttered with the activities of day to day life that we fail to see the life around us. My story may not be any different than a thousand others, but it is unique to me. Nobody else has ever felt the way I have felt. Nobody else can ever understand what I was feeling, or not feeling at that particular moment. And this has better helped me to understand how inadequate I am when dealing with such moments in the lives of others. No, I do not know how they feel. How can I? I can speculate based on my experiences, but my situation was nothing like theirs. I can only hope to be the person on the other end of the phone line that brings them back.
Comments