Can't You See My Crutches

While working in the shop on his country farm in Bolivia when Jake was 16 years old, he lost the better part of 2 of his fingers.  He was working with a wood plainer when the piece of wood backfired, and his hand slipped and went into the machine.  This accident happened before I had ever met Jake, so I do not remember him having his full hand.  To me that’s part of who Jake is and I do not even think of it every month.  Same with our Children, Roderick, Tyler and Angeline, although they enjoy the reaction at times when they tell dad to show his hand to their friends, to them that is a part of who daddy is.  Jake says though, not a day goes by that he does not think about missing those two fingers.  I have challenged him on a few occasions, and he is convinced that it is so.  Every day he is in some way reminded that he is missing those two fingers. 

I went through the blogs to do some labelling and reorganizing, and I came across the blog back from Aug 2016. I started that blog with the paragraph you just read, and it reminded me of some of the feelings I have at times.  Jake lost his fingers before I knew him and our children obviously only know dad as having two missing fingers but to Jake that day when he had that accident is still very real and will always be a day where he lost something very important to him, something that he is still reminded of every day, each time he grabs something or picks something up those middle two fingers aren’t there to help him with that and it takes extra effort.  (Now I know he would admit that experience was nothing compared to the grief of our boy’s early departure to heaven.)  To the rest of us this is just a part of who Jake is. We never knew him before this accident.  And that is how life is beginning to feel for me.  People are starting to come into our lives who did not know us before.  Although they hear about our story, they never knew who we were before as a family of five.  It seems strange, how is it possible that I can have close friends who did not know me before, how can they know me without the past me, is that even me?  We have celebrated Roderick’s birthday for the fourth time since he went to heaven and Tyler’s for the third time.  It really hit me on these birthdays.  Slowly but surely, we are healing and slowly but surely, they are fading into the past.  As much as we want them to remain close, we have no new memories from the past four years for Roderick and the past two for Tyler.  People are beginning to know us as a family of three, as someone whose story they have heard. As a family who used to be five, but our two sons are strangers to them even though we are close to them, how is that even possible?

I told my Therapist once; I feel like I am walking around with an arm and a leg amputated hobbling along on crutches and no one sees it. It seems wrong, it seems they should be able to tell that my arm and leg are missing, walking on crutches, but they cannot see, to them I am no different then anybody else.  It seems it might be easier if that were the case, that my arm and leg were gone or like Jake, everyone who sees his hand notices his fingers (although many people have known him for years and never noticed), that way they could see that I was disabled. I know that’s not true, in that case I would always be stared at, always be pitied and always need help, that’s not what I want but it is this feeling of being someone completely different from what people see.

Anyway, enough comparisons, it is hard to put into words yet likely something many people experience in different ways. My therapist compared it to some major surgery she had, and I would like to tell her story, but I do not remember it well enough, so I will make up my own version. Having been at home for weeks to recover and then going out for the first time she felt so vulnerable, inside her body were major wounds. She felt like she needed to hold her tommy and needed to tell everyone one that she was just barely able to be out, nobody knew or saw how she felt and there was no reason to tell everyone but it still felt like they should know. I thought that is very much how I feel.

Maybe one day I can explain what makes me feel this way but this is not how everyone feels, its like I want to hold onto my past and I want people to know that part of me but Angeline will often talk about moving away where no one knows her past and she could have a new start.  I don’t know whether my feelings are good or bad, healthy or unhealthy, whether it’s something I will have to confront and overcome or whether it will help me through to victory, whether it’s a building block in our journey or a stumbling block so I feel a bit vulnerable in posting this, I suspect though it’s neither good nor bad just another part of grief although it is a bit of a mystery at the moment but it does make me think of how many people I meet when I am out who give me a smile or a nod and behind that smile there is a story of pain and beauty. How many of them are in the middle of some terrible pain, feeling like that smile is not who they are, waiting until they get home where they can cry.

If you are new to this blog and wonder what happened to our boys you can find it in the post titled Our Story, on the web version it is featured on the right side of the screen.