{"id":8098,"date":"2020-04-10T21:45:28","date_gmt":"2020-04-10T21:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.donnaionadrozda.com\/lifecycle\/?p=8098"},"modified":"2020-04-10T21:45:28","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T21:45:28","slug":"dark-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.donnaionadrozda.com\/lifecycle\/dark-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel\/","title":{"rendered":"Dark at the End of the Tunnel"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h4>\n

Thank you for being here. <\/span><\/h4>\n

I’m allowing my inner nineteen-year-old to share her experience. She has been frozen in time. I could have stopped these posts a few weeks ago.\u00a0 In the midst of the pandemic of COVID-19 virus circumnavigating the globe I can hear myself say, ‘Don’t we have enough to deal with right now?’ ‘Do we really need just another story that contains a difficult challenge?’ Yet I have been guided to stop thinking that I know what is supposed to be happening as I lean in to listen to the deeper, ‘what next? what now? what matters? and the most important, ‘what would love do now?’<\/span><\/h4>\n

Thank you for being a reader. <\/span><\/h4>\n

I trust that there is enough universal quality to what happens in this young girl\/woman’s life to make her tale transferable. Surely she can remind us of other times\/other places\/other circumstances that can connect us and support us in seeing that we need to notice. I have a need to qualify my use of the word need<\/strong><\/em>. I do not know what anyone else needs. And yet I say:<\/span><\/h4>\n

We need to pay attention. <\/span><\/h4>\n

We need to be vulnerable with one another and with our own experience. I pushed this ‘young girl’ part away for decades. I thought I knew what this young girl had gone through. I thought I knew what she needed.<\/span><\/h4>\n

However,\u00a0 her appearance following my traumatic injury showed me that I was simply projecting my current event on top of what she had gone through. I continuously buried her. I kept disappearing her. She was too much for me.\u00a0 Turns out it required fifty years for me to realize that I didn’t have a clue what she went through. I still don’t have a clue for her. Now I’m willing to see … I’m willing to see her differently. It means the world that you are a witness.<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

The question is not what you look at, <\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n

but what you see.<\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n

Henry David Thoreau<\/span><\/h4>\n


\nMr. V pulls the car quietly into the driveway. I hold myself together so as not to break into pieces. I’m a slow-motion crash-in-process. He reaches gently up the porch stair taking the overnight bag from my hand. <\/span><\/h4>\n

He is so kind. He guides me down as though I\u2019m a prom queen and settles me into the backseat. Wet clothes and a single tear; petrified. <\/span><\/h4>\n

I\u2019m entering a long dark tunnel.<\/span><\/h4>\n

I can\u2019t see what\u2019s ahead.<\/span><\/h4>\n

Others move me.<\/span><\/h4>\n

Across the town, into a wheelchair, down a hospital corridor, onto a gurney.<\/span><\/h4>\n

The last thing I see is the face of my friend. She smiles gently and squeezes my hand. She tells me she will be waiting. I\u2019m pushed through a doorway into the unknown. My face is wet.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

I don\u2019t remember.<\/span><\/h4>\n

Her silhouette looms beside the bed. She waits. I slowly lift my head as she hands me a paper cup. I sip the warm water. She says, \u201cIt\u2019s a boy.\u201d She smiles softly at the diamonds in my eyes. This is the celebration.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

Lying on my back I close out the glaring lights. I need to keep the ceiling from swirling. I need to stop the floor from twisting.<\/span><\/h4>\n

I don\u2019t remember.<\/span><\/h4>\n

I lean back on the pillows. Sometime later I look through the open door. <\/span><\/h4>\n

Down the hall\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

I see mom.<\/span><\/h4>\n

I see the drummer.<\/span><\/h4>\n

I see my friend.<\/span><\/h4>\n

They gaze through the glass. <\/span><\/h4>\n

They are looking at what rippled under my skin. <\/span><\/h4>\n

They see what I am forbidden to acknowledge. <\/span><\/h4>\n

I watch.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

Since coming to the young widow\u2019s bungalow I\u2019ve been talking to the soon-to-arrive.<\/span><\/h4>\n


\nI make short cryptic records. \u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Look within<\/span>
\n\u00a0ebb tide<\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nriver mind<\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nknow pain <\/span>
\nkindle love<\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nsearch deep <\/span>
\nfind yourself<\/span><\/h4>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n
\n

Speak a mind <\/span>
\nKnow a heart <\/span><\/h4>\n

Play a part <\/span>
\nOn the stage <\/span>
\nOf life\u2019s
\nuncertainties<\/span><\/h4>\n

Always looking<\/span>
\nNever to see<\/span><\/h4>\n

The reality
\nof the Mystery<\/span><\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n
\n

A nine-month life has come<\/span>
\nThen \u2026 gone<\/span><\/h4>\n

Tracks have been erased.<\/span><\/h4>\n

Within the rivers of my mind<\/span>
\nThe memory is laced.<\/span><\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n
\n

I lie alone. <\/span><\/h4>\n

I listen to the conversation floating into my room from the corridor. Robert Kennedy’s funeral train is traveling from New York to Virginia. It’s Saturday. Mourners line the tracks by the thousands. He’ll be buried tonight in Arlington National Cemetary. He was assassinated several days ago. <\/span><\/h4>\n

I remember.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

In the morning the door swings open. The squeaking shoes of the smiling nurse mark her arrival as she walks toward my bed. Odd. She\u2019s carrying something and it’s not a breakfast tray. She\u2019s making direct eye contact, beaming wide and twinkly. She says something as I slide up bracing myself against the headboard while she purposely places the blanket into my instinctively raised arms. She adjusts my hands. Left cradles the tiny head. The right hand supports the length of the blanket. She doesn’t notice that she slides the envelope holding the adoption paperwork off to one side as she places a bottle on the bed stand.<\/span><\/h4>\n

\u00a0She smiles at us.<\/span><\/h4>\n

Us<\/span><\/h4>\n

She leaves.<\/span><\/h4>\n

Turned inside out; an infant visible \u2026 sleeping in my arms.<\/span><\/h4>\n

I immediately rest the bundle onto the sheets nestled against my tender belly. I lean to the right, reaching to pick up envelope and ballpoint pen.<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Blurry vision. Eyes weepy. <\/span><\/h4>\n

Move pen. Move pen. <\/span><\/h4>\n

Don\u2019t cry. Make lines. Capture this.<\/span><\/h4>\n

This<\/span><\/h4>\n

What do I call this? A mistake? A miracle?<\/span><\/h4>\n

\u00a0I quickly move the pen and secure the line. My souvenir.<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Setting the portrait aside, I gaze at the new arrival. I raise his crown to my long inhale. I am breathing him back inside. For safekeeping.<\/span><\/h4>\n

The door swings open.<\/span><\/h4>\n

The nurse, officious and curt, swoops in quickly for the retrieval. She mutters something about mistake and bonding time as she pries the sleeping infant out of my arms, a wrenching.<\/span><\/h4>\n

Gone<\/span><\/h4>\n

My body. <\/span><\/h4>\n

What is happening? What? I can feel something rising. Out of the depths of my body comes the full force of the silent scream.<\/span><\/h4>\n

I first heard it when I lay in utero listening to mom\u2019s muffled worried conversation about the hardship coming with my birth. I knew in advance:<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

I.<\/span><\/h4>\n

am.<\/span><\/h4>\n

a.<\/span><\/h4>\n

burden.<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

The long-locked-away wail escapes. No. Please.<\/span><\/h4>\n

Stop! Don\u2019t! Don’t make a sound. Stop! Don\u2019t make a scene. Stop! <\/span><\/h4>\n

Don\u2019t<\/span><\/h4>\n

Don’t<\/span><\/h4>\n

\u00a0 Don’t\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

The keening rises. The sound escapes out of my room and into the hallway.<\/span><\/h4>\n

My bellows land in the ears of everyone at the nurse\u2019s station. A nurse comes running. A Whitecoat follows. I receive his command, \u201cTurn! Turn onto your side!\u201d\u00a0 He stabs my right hip.<\/span><\/h4>\n

The tunnel closes: it’s dark.<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thank you for being here. I’m allowing my inner nineteen-year-old to share her experience. She has been frozen in time. I could have stopped these posts a few weeks ago.\u00a0 In the midst of the pandemic of COVID-19 virus circumnavigating the globe I can hear myself say, ‘Don’t we have enough to deal with right […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[193],"tags":[231,280],"class_list":["post-8098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-life","tag-healing-arts","tag-teenage-pregnancy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6htPT-26C","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.donnaionadrozda.com\/lifecycle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.donnaionadrozda.com\/lifecycle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.donnaionadrozda.com\/lifecycle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.donnaionadrozda.com\/lifecycle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.donnaionadrozda.com\/lifecycle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8098"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.donnaionadrozda.com\/lifecycle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8112,"href":"https:\/\/www.donnaionadrozda.com\/lifecycle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8098\/revisions\/8112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.donnaionadrozda.com\/lifecycle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.donnaionadrozda.com\/lifecycle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.donnaionadrozda.com\/lifecycle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}