Refusing Death
1436 Words
Death had visited Jessica many times.
Too many times.
By a certain point in her life, death no longer felt like some distant abstract fear people only talked about in movies or at funerals.
It became personal.
Close.
Real.
She had felt it beside her hospital beds.
Inside overdose rooms.
On cold pavement after the crash.
In operating rooms.
Inside terrifying nights where machines monitored whether her body would survive until morning.
Death kept reaching for her.
And somehow, every single time, Jessica kept pulling herself back toward life instead.
The strange thing was, when Jessica was younger, she didn’t fear death the way she should have.
Not during addiction.
Back then she lived recklessly because deep down she didn’t value herself enough to understand how precious life actually was.
Drugs numbed more than pain.
They numbed survival instincts too.
She remembers nights staying awake for days on meth and c***k, her body deteriorating while she acted invincible.
She remembers overdoses where she genuinely could have died permanently.
And afterward?
Instead of fully changing immediately, she often returned to the same destructive patterns anyway.
That’s the terrifying thing about addiction.
It convinces people death is less frightening than feeling reality sober.
One overdose especially stayed burned into her memory forever.
Her body collapsing suddenly.
Everything going dark.
The terrifying emptiness afterward.
And then violently returning to consciousness.
Heart racing.
Body shaking.
Confusion everywhere.
Jessica remembered realizing afterward:
Dying hurts.
People romanticize death sometimes when they’re suffering emotionally.
But near death felt horrifying to her.
Cold.
Violent.
Wrong.
That experience planted something inside her slowly, even if addiction still controlled her for a while afterward.
A small survival instinct began fighting back eventually.
Then Elijah happened.
And suddenly death no longer only threatened Jessica.
It threatened someone who needed her.
That changed everything.
For the first time in years, survival became bigger than self-destruction.
The moment she saw those two pink lines on October 17th, something shifted deep inside her.
She became terrified of dying.
Not because she suddenly valued herself perfectly.
Because she loved someone more than her addiction.
Elijah became the reason she clawed her way back toward life through brutal withdrawal and recovery.
And honestly?
He never stopped being that reason.
Then came the accident.
The crash changed Jessica’s relationship with death permanently.
Overdoses happened in chaos and numbness.
The accident was different.
The accident was violence.
Metal.
Impact.
Broken bones.
Blood.
Machines.
Comas.
Doctors unsure whether she would survive.
Her body shattered in ways words barely explain.
And according to everyone around her, death came very close to winning that night.
Closer than ever before.
Jessica later learned she died multiple times during the medical chaos afterward.
Machines flatlined.
Teams rushed back.
Doctors fought aggressively to bring her back.
Her parents stood nearby hearing conversations nobody should ever hear about their child.
And somehow, through all of that destruction, Jessica survived again.
Sometimes she still doesn’t fully understand how.
After waking from the coma, death stopped feeling theoretical forever.
Because she had already touched it repeatedly.
And strangely enough, surviving changed her more than dying almost did.
Jessica became aware of how fragile life truly was.
How quickly everything disappears.
One mistake.
One moment.
One bad night.
One medical emergency.
That’s all it takes sometimes.
People walk around assuming tomorrow is guaranteed.
Jessica no longer could.
She knew better now.
The hospital stays after the accident deepened that awareness even more.
Every infection.
Every breathing scare.
Every emergency admission.
Every doctor looking concerned.
Every machine alarm.
Each moment reminded her how quickly bodies fail.
And yet, instead of making her give up emotionally, it did the opposite.
It made her stubbornly determined to stay alive.
Almost aggressively alive.
That surprised even her.
Because younger Jessica treated life carelessly.
Current Jessica fought for it viciously.
There were nights in hospital rooms where fear hit hard.
Real fear.
The kind that arrives quietly after everyone else leaves and the room becomes dark except for monitor lights glowing softly beside the bed.
Jessica would lay awake listening to machines beep steadily while terrifying thoughts filled her mind.
“What if my body can’t survive this one?”
“What if I don’t make it home this time?”
“What happens to Elijah?”
That last question always hurt most.
Because death no longer meant escape or numbness.
It meant leaving her son behind.
And Jessica refused to accept that possibility quietly.
One hospital stay especially shook her deeply.
She remembers struggling to breathe properly while doctors moved faster and faster around the room.
Oxygen.
Needles.
Urgent conversations.
Concern hidden poorly behind professional voices.
Jessica could feel panic building beneath the surface while trying to stay calm externally.
And in the middle of all that fear, one thought repeated inside her head over and over:
“No. I’m not done yet.”
That sentence became survival instinct itself.
Not done yet.
Not leaving Elijah yet.
Not leaving her family yet.
Not after fighting this hard to rebuild life already.
Jessica realized something important over the years:
Survival is not always dramatic.
Sometimes survival looks quiet.
Taking medications.
Showing up to appointments.
Going back to hospitals even when trauma makes you terrified.
Choosing sobriety repeatedly.
Continuing after bad news.
Continuing after pain.
Continuing after grief.
Continuing after exhaustion.
That’s survival too.
And Jessica practiced that kind of survival daily.
There were moments she became angry at death itself.
Not in a theatrical way.
In a deeply personal way.
Because death already stole enough from her.
It stole years through addiction.
It stole parts of her body after the accident.
It stole her old voice.
It stole mobility.
It stole versions of herself she still mourned.
Jessica refused to let it steal her future too.
That refusal became fuel.
People often called her strong after hearing pieces of her story
Jessica never fully knew how to respond to that.
Because strength sounds fearless.
And she wasn’t fearless.
She was scared often.
Hospitals scared her.
Medical emergencies scared her.
The possibility of leaving Elijah scared her more than anything.
But maybe courage isn’t the absence of fear.
Maybe courage is continuing despite fear.
And if that’s true, then yes.
Jessica was courageous.
Because she kept choosing life repeatedly even after life hurt her terribly.
One thing that changed permanently after surviving so much was her perspective on ordinary moments.
Jessica no longer saw normal days as boring.
Normal became beautiful.
Waking up at home beside Kitty.
Hearing Elijah laugh in another room.
Watching movies with family.
Quiet evenings.
Simple conversations.
Fresh air outside hospital walls.
Those things became priceless after nearly losing them repeatedly.
People who have never nearly died often rush through ordinary life without noticing it.
Jessica noticed now.
Deeply.
There were still dark moments though.
Moments where exhaustion overwhelmed her.
here chronic illness felt unfair.
Where trauma replayed too loudly.
Where grief hit hard.
Jessica wasn’t magically positive all the time.
Survival doesn’t work like that.
Some nights she cried.
Some nights she broke down emotionally.
Some nights she felt unbelievably tired of fighting constantly.
But even during those moments, one thing remained true:
She still refused to quit.
Elijah strengthened that refusal every single day.
Jessica often watched him doing ordinary things — laughing, talking, playing, growing — and became overwhelmed emotionally knowing she almost never got to witness any of it.
Addiction almost killed her before he was even born.
The crash almost took her afterward.
Hospitals kept threatening things repeatedly.
And yet somehow she remained here watching him grow up.
That felt sacred to her.
Like survival itself became motherhood.
One evening while lying awake after another difficult medical scare, Jessica stared quietly at the ceiling thinking about every version of herself that almost died.
The addicted teenager.
The overdosed young woman.
The unconscious body on the road after the crash.
The coma patient.
The hospital admissions afterward.
So many moments could have ended everything permanently.
Yet somehow they didn’t.
And Jessica realized something quietly in that dark room:
Maybe she survived because she still had more life left to live.
More love left to give.
More healing left to do.
More motherhood left to experience.
More mornings beside Elijah and Kitty.
More family dinners.
More ordinary beautiful moments.
And until those moments were finished…
She would keep fighting.
No matter how many times death knocked at the door.
Because Jessica had learned something after surviving so much pain:
Wanting to live is one of the most powerful things a human being can feel.
And after everything?
She finally truly wanted to live.
- Writer
