Fall

I am sitting here on my balcony watching the sun rise. I have been in California for a year now. I left stumbling out of Illinois, more scattered than I care to admit. The journey was eventful to be sure. So many fabulous pictures to share and lessons I learned.

I have been blocked from writing much or creating even a cohesive record with my photos. It was overwhelming. The ceaseless beauty and revelation was impossible to capture and transmit in real time. I suppose I needed to settle into the distance, before I could share with clarity.

Honestly, there just seemed to be no point in showing or telling you much about where I am now - without giving you something to compare it to.

THE FALL

July 24, 2017

I woke to my doorbell ringing.

I attempted to jump out of bed. I could not jump up. I could not sit up. I could not get out of bed. I deduced from the pain and the sensation I could hear like china, that I had fractured, if not broken a rib. The doorbell continued. Eventually, I roll slowly off my bed and answer the door. I am still however, unable to explain what had happened for an uncomfortably long time. Eventually I remember I had been taking a picture down from over the bathtub at about 2:00 a.m. Some time later, I woke up on the bathroom floor, not knowing I had slipped on the tub, hit my head and my side as I fell. I don't recall being in pain, but I remember it was almost daybreak and thinking I could get a little more sleep before I had to get back to packing. I must have crawled into the bed, a few feet away and went back to sleep.

Then the doorbell woke me up.

September 4, 2017

DIAGNOSIS:

BLUNT HEAD INJURY, INITIAL ENCOUNTER

FACE LACERATIONS, INITIAL ENCOUNTER

YOUR DISCHARGE & FOLLOW UP INSTRUCTIONS ARE:

You were seen in the ER for a fall - you were found to have facial laceration and a possible shoulder separation... blah blah blah...

The instructions went on for a dozen pages of how to care for the eight stitches above my left eye near my hair line and the shoulder injury I sustained trying to avoid stumbling. THIS fall, I remember. I remember exactly how and why it happened. I remember the look on my children faces. I remember hearing myself wailing pathetically of my broken heart when the paramedics asked me if anything else hurt. I don't know if they gave me something for the pain during the ride to the hospital. I do know I was upbeat and chatty with the security guy positioned outside my curtain at the ER. I didn't realize at the time he was there to keep an eye on me. They eventually came and stitched me up, went over the discharge instructions and some of the lab results. The doctor was serious as he told me that my potassium was very low which was concerning.

Also, my blood alcohol level was .255 when I arrived at the ER. That information was disturbing, even to me.

And yet, there was farther down to go...

October 2, 2017

I hear my sister somewhere talking to someone saying something about waiting for a bed.

Then I hear my own sloppy voice repeating, “Just let me die."

No one answers me.

I open an eye. Through a door I can see three or four heads and shoulders of people sitting upright in chairs. They are in another room on the other side of a hallway.

I am not upright. I am laying on the floor. There are small chairs and a play area set up near a T.V. The rest of the space consists of groupings of larger chairs, of which I was in the middle of, on the floor.

October 2, 2017

8 hours earlier

I had driven myself to a treatment center for an assessment at a hospital near my house. I had a stretch, maybe a week, without alcohol, but it was not going well. After a long interview process, it was decided I could start the program that day. The plan was for me to join the afternoon group session.

"Go to the second floor to get your labs done." the admissions nurse had said. "Take your time. Grab some lunch and come back up to join us after.”

I’m sure she meant get some lunch in the hospital cafeteria.

Instead, after the lab, I went to the grocery store two miles away, got a sandwich and another, “last” bottle of vodka. I took a couple of bites of the sandwich, as I hadn’t eaten anything yet that morning. Then I drove back to the hospital parking lot and drank nearly half the bottle of ten dollar raspberry flavored vodka before I went up to join the group.

Except, when I got there, I was not allowed to join the group or the program after all.

Apparently, NOT being drunk, was a requirement... Who knew?

I don't remember exactly how it unfolded. At some point the nurse called my sister to pick me up. She sent us on our way with a list of hospitals that might have available detox beds. Now, after hours of driving around the city, trying to find someplace for me to dry out, I woke to my suicidal song on the floor of an empty pediatric waiting room, groaning the chorus, "just let me die."

"She's waking up," I heard my sister say. "I'll call you back."

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Alexian Brothers Hospital,” she answered.

“WHAT?” I shrilled. Both of my eyes wide open now.

She said it again. "Alexian Brothers in Elk Grove Village…

Everything in me jolted. I had been in Evanston! How did we get here? There were dozens of hospitals between my house and THIS hospital.

"Are you kidding me?"

She was not. She explained we had been to several other hospitals, none that had a bed available.

I imagine, somewhere deep inside of me, my soul was laughing at the cosmic comedy, the providential happenstance that led us to THIS hospital.

I wasn't laughing.

But I wasn't crying to die anymore either.

It was incredulous to me. How did I get HERE! It was like a Narcon blast that brought me back from an overdose of despair.

I pulled myself onto a chair, knowing what I needed to do. Soon I was able to get it together enough to throw up in the bathroom out in the hall. I convinced my sister I was good to go home telling her I would explain later. She couldn't understand what just happened. Unbeknownst to her, I had just received an injection, not given by the hospital, that caused my memory to be flooded. A shot was administered in my soul that set my heart rhythm in tune and sobered me up right away...

September 1990

I am 22 years old. I work as a nanny during the week and at a bookstore on the weekends. Every Saturday night, after I close the bookstore, I drive an hour to lead a 12 Step support group on the adolescent psychiatric unit of a hospital.

Guess which hospital?

Alexian Brothers Hospital.

For a year, I went and shared my experience, strength and hope with a group of rotating kids at this treatment center. I knew these kids. I had been these kids just a few years before when I was addicted to cocaine as a high school senior. I didn't go to treatment then. I had a supernatural encounter in a hotel room during a Bible study that changed my life forever. Later, I found community and grounding principles through programs like AA and Adult Children of Alcoholics.

But it was on those Saturday nights that I learned what it felt like to live in flow. I experienced a deep sense of purpose as I simply bore witness to people’s pain, validating them in their experience, and being a conduit for truth, love and grace. It’s what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Present day 33 years later

Back on my balcony, I am sometimes overwhelmed by where I am now. Being facedown on the hospital floor brought me face to face with myself again. I remembered who I was, what I was supposed to be doing. My falls, faults and failures were wake up calls I finally answered.

Instead of extending, I became the recipient of validation, love and grace. I began to heal and grow parts of myself I didn't know existed. I became more of who I was created to be. I took the chance to start again

It’s been almost 6 years since I had a drink. Having come this far I find I've been brought full circle. No longer falling apart, I find doors of opportunity to work with at risk youth and exploited women and children are falling in my lap. No longer believing I fall short, I find things falling into place. No longer falling off the radar, falling in love may be just around the corner. Who knows?

What I know with certainty is, tomorrow at dawn, God willing, I will be watching the waking light from behind my floral fortress, finding it all the sweeter having remembered how dark it had been, not so long ago...