thirty nine years and some days ago I was born, by all accounts I was strong, I walked early on, and had a knack for mechanical tasks. I grew, I became older, I made friends, they left and new friends took their place. I met a person, got married, and had a child, I had a great career, and then Cancer hit me twice, in the same place. My story is a lot like countless other lives, that were hit with the unimaginable, lives get tossed about, things change, some people pull through just fine, others breath their last while laying in a bed far from hearth and home. I was one who pulled through but not without injury.
July 4th is an unusual day for me in that it once represented the end of my innocence as a child when my father was badly injured, but it marks when I would consciously have take stock of my situation, it would the first in a long string of days where I was facing my own crucible. where I would be weighed, measured, and perhaps find out I was wanting in many areas. July 4th was my day to face the unimaginable, the day I would have to accept that I might not make it out of this in one piece, or with my true self in tact. I would look at a leg, that at the time I couldn’t move, flexing my toes was agony, let along the nightmare of cleaning me up if I pooped, I had never thought I would need help cleaning my self up for three months straight while in the hospital, I can say with absolute truthfulness, the first time I used a real toilet was as if I was reborn. I am still recovering and will have another surgery this fall, the unimaginable did happen to me, I had to be reforged through hard work and percervierance. I am quitter now days, which gives me clarity to see when things aren’t right, to use my senses more to know when I am in danger. In the last few months I have seen and done things that I would have said were unimaginable not so long ago, and they will continue to happen.

Today marks the day I have always face the unimaginable, from having to be an adult at 8, to facing that which frightened me the most, I find I can understand what must have been going through the founding fathers minds when they sent a letter off to a king saying “we the people…” and would fight a war over it, they themselves likely never imagined a day where they would through off English rule and start a grand experiment.

So go forth, and if the unimaginable happens to you, don’t worry its happened to a lot of folks.