Trauma Survivors Day

 At the time of Ron's accident, we had two, level-one, Trauma centers.  They flew him downtown.  

He was released after several weeks, I took care of him after that.  He went back in the hospital a few times after that but he always came home.  

Anyway, after Ron's accident I heard the trauma center did a "Trauma Survivor's Day" to showcase the patient and the people who cared for them.  They invited, they said, all the trauma patients every year.  

Ron never got an invitation.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe they didn't see him as a positive outcome.  He was a lot better to me after the accident but that's not saying much.  

But I've been thinking about that lately, how many of us are trauma survivors.  I had a lot of issues with food, for instance.  I always had to have a lot of food in the house.  I always bring more than I'll eat for my lunch.  Some of that, I share, but a lot of it I bring home.  

I see people at work, who have obviously had food insecurity, take food from the lunch room not because they're hungry but because it's there.  Old donuts, things like that.  We get donuts from the bakery every Friday.  They're not very good.  But some employees will get a paper towel and stash 6-7 donuts in their bag in addition to the 1-2 they're eating.  It's obvious they've suffered want.  They don't want the food but they feel compelled to take it.  

I was surprised how fat I was in a lot of the baby pictures I got from my sister, particularly ones after my Dad remarried.  I leveled out at some point.  I was about 130 pounds and five-seven at seventeen when I met Ron.  

But we never really recover, I think.  We move on, we adapt, we adjust.  We make it look easy.  No one would ever guess.  But we carry the scars.