Getting my wings to fly

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
Grieve not, rather find,
Strength in what remains behind,
 

William Wordsworth
English poet (1770 - 1850)

One wonders if William Wordsworth had felt grief in his life so painful, that he wrote this poem.  The first time I heard this poem was on a soap opera.  It was one of those dramatic scenes where a young lady loses the love of her life when he dies.  Now it means something special to me also, having survived a car accident in which my husband became a paraplegic in a wheelchair for life. 

As  human beings we are made to love, laugh, be angry, be sad, to cry and to have many other emotions.  We also grieve when tragedy hits us in the face.  I know there are certain stages that the psychologists say we go through when we lose a loved one or something tragic happens in our life.  I never really thought about it until the accident.  I remember going through those stages, pretty much textbook.  But the one stage that is always there is the grieving for what might have been. It may not be as painful or as fresh as it was to begin with, but it is there.   As the poet said, your grief must be replaced by something else in order to survive.  You find joy in simple things. You learn to love even deeper than you ever have before.  Things you never thought about suddenly become a treasure.  Memories that were just good memories now become priceless and find their way into your soul. 

You can't go backward after a tragedy, you must go forward or your soul will shrivel and die.  I'm not saying that the grief ever goes away completely, but you can find ways to "find strength in what remains behind." I remember the day that I finally accepted that my husband would be a paraplegic the rest of his life.  It was a turning point in both of our lives - in finding strength in what we had left. 

My husband and I have always made cracks back and forth at each other, teasing and pranking.  After the accident, that fun went out the window.  It seemed we were both on eggshells, not exactly knowing what to say to the other, no joking, no cracks, nothing remained of what held us together.  Our lives were mired in grief and sadness.  We were in the kitchen, and my husband made some remark about something (don't even remember what it was) and without thinking, the old me popped out and my mouth opened and these words came out:  "If you don't stop that, I am going to come over and knock you out of your wheelchair."  Without missing a beat, he popped off, "Then I'll pull myself over to you on the floor and bite your kneecap."  We both just looked at each other, in stunned silence and then burst out laughing.  We laughed until I had to sit down on the floor.  We both had tears running down our faces.  I knew then, that we had reached that point to where we could go on.   We could find strength in what was left behind - our home, our children and their spouses, our precious grandchildren, going to the farm and having a bonfire and weiner roast, getting two small dogs who are spoiled rotten, and even traveling again.  It was all there, just different.  The insults and cracks began again, and we were comfortable with each other as we had always been. 

That simple incident also helped my husband deal with the way strangers reacted to him - particularly in an elevator.  There would be this awkward silence, no one wanted to look at him so he would pop off something about him being really careful not to run over their toes, or something similar.  That would break the ice, people would laugh, and yes, we would go on!  He learned to find his strength to assert himself when people would talk to me instead of him, thinking his brain was what was crippled, not his body!  His strength was his personality, his ability to put people at ease, to joke and laugh.  My strength was still there, I just had to learn how to use it differently.  Many times I had to tell someone to ask him, rather than me, because he was the one who knew the answer to the question they were asking.

This song, written by members of the Beatles, pretty much says it for me - that we are getting wings and flying, we are finding strength in what remains behind.  It is our time to fly.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Black bird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

May you be blessed to find that strength that will let you fly when the moment is right.  Peace.