It's hard to type this.
In all honesty, I'll probably go back and add to this from time to time as I heal.
Right now though, as I have a moment to actually have thoughts, I need to share about this bird and what it has represented to me through these endless seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, & months since mid-March when Brandon's Day Habilitation Program closed due to the criminal con-game called COVID.
I suppose my disclaimer in that statement is that while I do believe there are "coronavirus'" - I do not believe we have had an epidemic of coronavirus illnesses. Not anymore than the seasonal epidemics of allergies, colds, or the flu. I believe the "plandemic" was intentional. In that specific strain of COVID-19 that started the quarantines rolling. I belive the numbers have been greatly inflated. I believe the fear-mongering was of epic proportions. I do believe people died during this plandemic. As people die every day of every year. From something. I believe that whether it's the flu, a cold, allergies, cancer, diabetes, heart issues, or just old age - it is our responsibility to live a healthy lifestyle. To stay home when sick - to be out and about when you aren't. I respect virus' and illnesses. Which is why I do my best to eat healthy and exercise and supplement with herbs and vitamins to help strengthen my immune system.
"It's always darkest right before it goes pitch black" is a saying on a Demotivational Poster I love. Sarcasm is my second language, and I refer to that particular demotivator quote often in my "Life with Autism, Seizures, & a side of PANDAS" of vaccine injury.
Yesterday was Brandon's first day back at the only Day Habilitation Program in Houston that would accept him and his level of need.
I intended to begin this blog then...
But I couldn't.
All the things I had thought in my head that I would do when, if, his Day Habilitation Program opened swirled in my head like a tornado...I couldn't wait to go a hundred miles an hour with my hair on fire.
But in actuality, for most of the day, all I could do was sit and weep.
The emotion of being set free from constant trauma for months on end - seven to be exact - too overwhelming.
The sheer mental strength it took to keep marching forward - had taken its toll and once my mind, my body, knew it was free, I could let go and let it all out...
And out it all came - in tear after tear.
The heartache, isolation, constant of caregiving, defeat in having no options, the realization that literally no one in society cares/cared about me, my community; the trauma of all that and more all came spewing out like a volcano erupting. The mental, physical, emotional toll on myself, my marriage.... To have watched others still, even in quarantine, be able to live their lives, do things, have a marriage - the anger, hurt, frustration, jealousy of that..... Knowing churches were empty while a multitude like me were desperate for a place that would care for our loved ones so they, and we, could have a break for just an hour - to go for a walk, to the store, or to simply get to do nothing, and do it in silence.
Oh, how I simply craved uninterrupted silence!
I learned more about humanity - and unfortunately Christianity --- during those months of hearing from no one outside my own vaccine-injured community...and only perhaps 2 or 3 family members outside that. The few times we did get help - it was because we begged. A caregiver found to give a few hours of weekly reprieve to see our Grandson - because of a referral from a fellow warrior.
I learned as well - the sheer strength of the fellow warriors in my own community. I know how I felt with just relatively few moments of help in comparison to the ginormous amount of help we actually need - and I just wept for those who haven't even had the crumbs of help I had. For years on end they have been in quarantine because of no services. Not even a Day Program. I have never been more aware of their plight than I was going through my own. It is cruel. It is cruel how little regard anyone has for any of us or our loved ones.
Cruel was my word during this COVID.
It has just been cruel.
I suppose the motivational quote would be, "It's always darkest right before the dawn."
Though honestly as the weeks became months, some part of me shut down in self-preservation. Everything I knew of HOPEISM was still true - I believed there would be a dawn even if I couldn't see it, feel it, or experience it.
My saving grace became the laptop computer my mom bought me.
While Brandon was inside raging, humming, or growling - I could bring my laptop out in my beloved "Log Cabin" back porch and see the freedom I longed to experience.
I'm not sure how long the bird was out there before I was - but I noticed that the same bird would come every single morning. One day I saw him fly to the bird feeder and noticed it was an awkward sort of flight. Something happened to him that left him battered, bruised, & broken.
I could instantly relate to him.
As the days went by I noticed his eye was severely injured. When that side was turned to me, I could get up and walk to the bird feeder for a closer look without him seeing me.
That bird became my HOPEISM during this time where no person was.
His battered, bruised, broken presence was an odd sort of inspiration.
Despite the hardship, he showed up each morning. He sat there on the bird bath and then awkwardly flew to the bird feeder where he would eat and rest for a few hours.
He was surviving.
There was beauty despite his ashes.
I would look at him in awe and think that if he could survive, so could I.
That feather, or whatever it was that was sticking out of his eye, much like the thorn of isolation and no help or encouragement from anyone outside my own community that was gouging my side with every passing moment.
All that bird had was the safety and shelter of my bird feeder - and more often than not that bird was my only safety and shelter.
I know it sounds odd and stupid and totally ridiculous - but that bird was an angel of sorts helping me hang on to HOPEISM.
He was my companion helping me through hell to HOPEISM.
There were days I could sneak up so close to that bird that I could almost touch him.
It made me wonder how many days I never even noticed God was so close to me that he was actually holding me...
I just marvel at that.
Psalm 34:18
The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears; He delivers them from all their troubles. The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him from them all...
Dawn came from the darkness.
I haven't seen that bird since.
