Improvise

On August 16th, 2007 I suffered my knee injury while I was on the job.  Ironically, August 16th just happens to be my husband's birthday, but I didn't meet him until a little over two years after this.   It's just another one of those dates that is forever seared into my memory.  After I got over the initial pain, I realized the extent of my injuries and the rehab process that I would have to take to just get back to where I could start working towards the level of fitness I had been accustomed to.  It was a long, painful nine months of recovery.   More so than I had imagined.  And to be honest, my knee still is not what is used to be before the injury - it never will be.  That's OK though because I can still walk and do most of the things I used to before the injury - others with leg injuries have not been so fortunate, and I am thankful that my injury was not that bad and it makes me feel for those who have worse injuries or recoveries to face.   Keep it in perspective, right?

However, I was obviously devastated when it happened because I had worked so hard to get to where I was at at work, and I knew I would have to recover first and then work twice as hard just to get back to the same spot I had been in.  It was a daunting challenge, and I wondered if I could even overcome it.  I began to doubt myself.  A day or two after my injury, a mentor of mine came to visit me at my parents' house where I was recovering.  This friend was instrumental in guiding me towards my career path, and he always had really good advice.  That's probably why he has moved on to bigger, and better things, in his career and has become extremely successful.  He told me to hang in there and tough it out because he believed in me and knew I was strong enough to do it - and I did, and I was.  He had also sent me an email at work that I still treasure to this day.

In the email he included a quote he had read in a book somewhere that had stuck with him, and he thought I would find wisdom in it during my recovery.  I ended up combining a motto I had learned from work and this quote onto a card that I used to carry around in my wallet all the time.  My copy has somehow disappeared (which upsets me that I cannot find it right at this moment), but my Mom still has her copy.  I still think of these words often and it is quite pertinent to the situation I find myself in today.

The card says "Improvise. Adapt. Overcome."  Then on the other side is the quote:  "Greatness is not defined by how we handle all that goes well for us but how we handle all that does not."  Well, my "new normal" version of "Improvise. Adapt. Overcome" is now  something like "Improvise.  Adapt.  Carry On."  I cannot overcome my loss of Ellison - that is unthinkable and not something that is ever overcome.  But I can carry on.  Each day I'll improvise and adapt and carry on as I face the challenges that come with surviving the loss of a child.  And I'll keep thinking of that quote my friend shared with me almost seven years ago....