Amazed We're Still Amazed

One of the challenges most TBI survivors commonly face is the nagging, taunting question of, “Why Me?” The seemingly unfair “targeting” of bad fortune renders many of us paralyzed with anger and bitterness. Why me? Why me? Why the *&%$ ME????

At some point, maybe each of us needs to ask, “Why not me?”

If we consider that 1,228,600 people get cancer every year, 1.4 million will suffer traumatic brain injury, 1.1 million will have a heart attack, 20 million worldwide will have a stroke, then we have to admit our chances of running into a life-altering event are pretty good.

And that’s not even counting the 2.5 million who have MS or the more than 2 million with Alzheimer’s. That’s not factoring in deaths by car accident, drowning, homicide and the hundred and one other perfectly awful things that can happen to any and all of us.

I’m amazed we’re still amazed that this seems so unfair. I mean, thank God it’s not Stage Four, can’t-do-anything-more-for-you cancer! It’s not hard to find worse off when you decide it’s important to look.

The point is, there aren’t too many who make it to a hundred smoking cigars, having sex, drinking martinis and doing the Salsa. People suffer. There are losses.

Living with life is the price of living a life.

I’ve been thinking so much recently about how fortunate I am to be living here in Michigan. Even when the snow keeps coming and the jobs keep going and my Lions keep losing…

I’m not naked (everyone else is thankful for that too), starving in some African desert (although I could stand to suffer a little bit of starving), hiding from raping rebels. I’m not crouching in a bomb shelter five times a day in Gaza. I’m not warming myself on some steam grate in the middle of a winter’s night in Detroit.

I’m not amazed I got singled out by misfortune and bad luck and curses and whatever else we spit as nails. I’m amazed I got to live! I’m amazed at how fortunate and blessed and lucky and gifted I truly am. Every single day I’m here. And, even with my memory problems, I know I’ll never forget that.

See other Kara Swanson brain blogs.