A year later: we're just not at the end

I can't tell you how much I appreciate the attention these little blogs got a year ago, while my family was going through what has proven to be a life-changing accident.
My blog started before that, after I left a life of journalism that I never dreamed I'd leave. My oldest brother told me I needed to keep writing, just to stay in the habit, so I did this not for anyone else to read but for me.
Of course, having spent most of my life writing for publication, I did want to be read. Every writer has an ego, and I'm no exception.
Then came the accident. Almost a year ago - April 21, 2012.
It's funny, how things happen. Someone suggested that I do one of those Caring Bridge posts, but - and I hope this doesn't offend anyone - to me that's what you did when things are terminal. I absolutely refused to believe MG would not bounce back and return to normal.
However, I also knew we are both from large families and have been blessed to have many, many friends who are scattered all over the world. I needed a way to communicate with them easily and efficiently. So I took my "Homesick for Eden" blog and turned a large part of it into chronicling "the accident."
The numbers piled up as people found and read this story. We were amazed. I know our story is not unique, and that many of you have gone through much more difficult times and handled those times with more grace and courage than I have. The only way I can explain it is that maybe my telling of our tale connected somehow. I was encouraged by people- men,  in particular - who wrote me encouraging notes and included messages like, "What you are saying is exactly how I felt when we went through our situation, but I didn't know how to say it."

I had hoped that by this time, I'd be able to put the finishing touches on this story. I just knew that, a year later, MG would be back to normal - working again at Christian Service Mission, wearing her high heels, spending days with me at the coast, working in the yard at home, doing all those things she did before April 21 of last year.
On the day of the accident, two of Mountain Brook's finest came by the hospital to see me. They wanted to know how MG was doing before they filed charges against the man that hit her. They honestly believed it would end up being manslaughter, because there was no way they could see MG surviving.
Me? It never occurred to me she would not survive. I remember calling the kids and saying, "Mom was in a wreck. It's bad, but she's going to be OK. Don't feel like you need to come home if you want to stay at school." That was stupid of me, and fortunately my kids understood it was serious and did come home right away to see their Mom and support their Dad who was in denial.
To all of you who came to see MG when she was in the coma, I apologize for sounding like an idiot. I remember walking down the hall with her family and friends and sternly - the only word I can think of - telling them, "When we go in this room, I only want positive conversation. I don't want any crying, I don't want anyone talking about how bad things look. We're going to assume MG can hear what we're saying, and we're going to be happy!"
All of them went along with me. I appreciate that. Some of them took one look at MG and had to step outside to regain their composure, but they all followed my silly demand.
Again, all I can say is that it was how I was able to handle this situation. I refused to believe MG would not be part of my life for many, many years to come.

I don't know if I've ever talked about the week before the accident. It was MG's 50th birthday. She wanted it to be special. I took a week off from work. Her birthday, if I remember, fell on Easter weekend and we (MG, SaraBeth, Grayson and I; Roecker was still a "knob" at The Citadel) went to Memphis to see her Dad. We took SaraBeth back to school in Greenville, SC. We took a day trip to Ashville and toured The Biltmore Estates, with breakfast at the fanciest McDonald's (there was a grand player piano in the dining room!). We went to Charleston and toured the coast, got kicked off a golf course, ate great seafood, had the kids come in to see Roecker's "Recognition Day'' at The Citadel. We had a great week; one of the greatest of many great weeks I have been blessed to share with MG.
It was, I hoped, everything she wanted for her 50th birthday celebration.

A week later, she was trying to get to St. Louis to see her oldest brother be baptized. It was going to be very special for her. She never made it, because on her way to the airport that Saturday morning a guy who'd spent the night before celebrating his brother's birthday and drinking way too much came blowing through a red light in a Chevy Tahoe, hitting the car MG was driving square on the driver's side door.
It only occurs to me as I write this now how two birthday celebrations were so tragically connected.

A year later, our lives have changed so dramatically. So many of our plans now seem like fairy tales from another time and another place.

And yet ...

My life has been so blessed. Charmed, almost. Not that everything has gone the way I wanted, or that everything has gone 'right.' But I've been protected from so much. And I have always known I didn't deserve it, that it was just the Grace of God and perhaps the prayers of my parents over me when I was growing up.
Some of you suggested I put this all in a book. I don't know that it's appropriate, but I did hope this spring, on the one year anniversary, I could put a final chapter on this saga; wrap it up in a nice bow.
I never imagined we'd still be dealing with this, still going through surgeries, trying to figure out how to go forward with new challenges and how to turn them into opportunities.

The simple fact is, this is real life, and most of us know real life doesn't wrap up so neatly.
One of my favorite quotes is from the beginning of the movie, "Brian's Song" (the original). The narrator says, "Ernest Hemingway once said, 'All true stories end in death.' Well, this is a true story."

I guess the point is that we - MG and I - are not at the end of the story yet. She came really close; closer than I care to admit. And there were times when MG wondered out loud why God didn't just "take her home,'' to end her pain and suffering and put her in that place where God wipes away all our tears.
Selfishly, I'm happy the story continues.
I saw a movie recently, one of those Bollywood productions from India, in which one of the central characters had a saying that I really liked. It went something like::
"Everything will work out in the end. And if it doesn't, then you're just not at the end."

I like that.
We're just not at the end.