Moving from Hurt to Healing: How 1 Step Back Can Take You 2 Steps Forward

The Lily we planted has bloomed!

This morning, like every morning as I went out to the car in my driveway, I glanced at the lily. Aida and I had planted it in memory of her sister, who had died suddenly back at the beginning of May.

During difficult times, it is often hard to picture life any other way. In the heart of a crisis, serious illness, medical emergency, divorce, bereavement or job loss it is difficult to imagine that things will ever be different or better. Looking out into the future is frightening particularly if what you imagine is more of what you are living through or dare I say it, worse. Sometimes things do get worse, before they get better. 

Rarely do they stay the same. 

Recovery Part 3 - What Does Recovery Look Like?

***This is the third post in a series about living with and recovering from serious illness. The first post Recovery-The New Normal appeared two weeks ago. The second post Recovery Part 2- Poem In Your Pocket appeared last week.***

 

I really thought I knew what recovery looked like. I started to write about Jonny's recovery from MVD brain surgery, the moment he emerged from the ICU back in early November 2011, until starting this blog in February. I measured it in terms of Celebrating the Small and Big Milestones. I described it as Navigating a Labyrinth, I talked about  Two Steps Forward One Step Back. ( Please see Brainstorming, for all these posts and an explanation of MVD.) I thought I had it down.