“Death is nothing, but to live defeated is to die every day.” — Napoleon Bonaparte
I spent three weeks in a coma as a result of having a car accident late July 2003. I then spent a further three weeks following this locked in and unable to interact with the outside world which led to three months of inpatient care in order to become well enough to be discharged from hospital.
As I began to “awaken” from coma and encounter periods of lucidity, my Mum did all she could to ensure it went as smoothly as possible. She gently and compassionately let me know where I was and what was happening, being mindful of withholding any details of that which wouldn’t have served me at this early stage.
After lying there for some time, shocked, bewildered, and acclimatising myself to the world I had just returned to, I believe the first question I asked, was if my car was okay. I had no idea of the seriousness of the incident that had led to me lying there in a hospital bed. I absolutely adored that thing.
I was a young man at the age whereby it represented freedom. It represented expression. It represented individuality. It represented—what I believed was—me.
I had only had it for a short while but would jump at any opportunity to take it for a drive, windows down, music playing, grinning from ear to ear.
Laying there with pipes reaching out of every orifice, machines bleeping and nurses continually checking in on me, my brain was not yet functioning anywhere near the degree required to process the severity of the information about to be shared with me. However, it needed to be done and Mum’s gentle and compassionate response to my initial question governed the next. I wanted to know if there was anyone else in the car.
Mum calmly stressed that I wasn’t in trouble and that I hadn’t done anything wrong. At this point, I remember the room falling completely silent. Everything just went silent. She then reached for my hand and asked me if I remembered my friend. She told me that he had died.
At this stage, I would need to be reminded where I was and what had happened over and over as I continued dipping in and out of consciousness, each time arriving back in the room and completely forgetting where I was and what had previously been said to me.
As an empath (a quality that, I believe, having once navigated our way through the layers of defenses we learn to employ to protect ourselves from perceived threats, we all have the ability to connect with if we are truly honest with ourselves), this has been extraordinarily difficult to entertain.