The Rise of A Phoenix

Chapter Twelve-Reasons for Being Steel

I was exhausted but I told no one that. Being me, I pushed until failure and past it. I had to. It was how I was built. My father always said I had to push hard because no one else was going to help make me better unless I put in the effort to help myself. It didn't help that I had two cousins who survived polio years before they had a vaccine and became Olympic swimmers despite being paralyzed from the hips down. It didn't dawn on me until I left my parents' house, was hospitalized, then moved to Victoria House and was completely out on my own that being disabled, trying to live, and function normally in society was so difficult.

I had done it using the “I can't go back, so I have to survive” mentality. People told me that I was backwards for thinking that way, but I knew I had to, otherwise I would have to go back to my parents’ house with my tail between my legs like a helpless dog, possibly get abused again, and possibly die. Death for me was not an option. No one except for my psych therapist and my colleagues in LinebyLineTime knew that I had actually contemplated suicide at the most severe point of my stepmother's abuse. I had written a poem titled Salvation for LinebyLineTime's Spring themed evening session, and had mentioned it in the opening lines. The poem went as follows:

Spring is a time for new beginnings

But your rebirth has already begun

You recall how far you've come

From the young woman who at Easter a year ago

Asked God that if there was no other option to save her, to end it all.

Instead, he gave you salvation in the form of your brother Thomas staying with you to watch the house and your parents leaving for your father's company trip to Seven Springs in October.

For that, you're grateful.

But you know that mercy comes at a price.

You wonder if you're deserving

As you're drinking your coffee at the breakfast table.

After all, your entire life is a miracle.

You jumped the gun and made history twice, remember?

How can you forget when your early spring birthday was circled in red on the March calendar?

Spring makes you think of your former innocence

Swimming pools and fishing trips

A Truth or Dare first kiss

From a boy who probably doesn't remember your name

Although you'll never forget his.

For you, Spring is innocence, salvation, miracles and bliss.

George had given me top marks for my piece that evening and I couldn't believe it. I was speechless and dumbstruck. Eventually I typed out something to the effect of: Wow, top marks. I guess Ms. Rust(my 10th grade English teacher) was right. English is my calling.

It wasn't the first time I had gotten top marks, however, I had done it once before for a really dark take on what happens when you are having surgery.

The second evening in the hospital was just as difficult as the first. I had way too many things going on in my head, so when I finally went to sleep, I dreamed them all out. I dreamed of parallel bars like the kind physical therapists use to try and teach paralyzed people to walk again in Hollywood movies, of running across beaches and standing in the ocean. I dreamed of Tommy holding our child.

Two thirds of the things I dreamed couldn't happen. I wouldn't need the parallel bars, and I couldn't bring Tommy back, but I could heal, have my child, and go to the beach. That's what I resolved to do. I simply resolved to heal for myself and my child. They deserved a mother who was healthy. I deserved to be healthy. I had been broken for too long.

The next morning I looked at the calendar and realized that it was the first of August. I sent up a silent prayer because this morning was the twelfth anniversary of the motorcycle wreck that almost took my father's life. I looked at the clock. 7:30 AM. Three hours from now, my family and I's lives changed. Thank you, God. You spared my father and hero, even though you couldn't spare my father his. I guess you still needed a McFadden angel.

I had poured two shots of whiskey out in Irish memorial tradition last summer after graduation. One was for my grandfather Thomas Joseph McFadden Sr and the other was for my grandfather Ronald Paul Chatham. It was because I wanted to honor those men by fulfilling my dream that I even considered going back to school for my degrees.

My grandfather Thomas Joseph McFadden Sr's spirit had come to me about three weeks after his funeral. I was in the house by myself and I had a notebook lying on the kitchen table, trying to write. I couldn't.

Up to the point of my grandfather Thomas Joseph McFadden Sr's death, I had only written a poem for my father on the eve of his discharge from the hospital. I still remember the feeling of his spirit being in the room with me. It was like he was standing there trying to speak, but it was inside my head. He said that I needed to write again, that it was too big a part of me to let stay silent and let go of and it would be honoring his memory if I did.

So, I resolved to honor his memory as well as the memory of my grandfather Ronald Paul Chatham by making sure that I achieved my dream of being a professional writer and poet. Through all the struggle and trial, that's one of the reasons I held on to it. The other reasons were my siblings, nieces and nephews. They deserved a sibling and aunt they could look at and be proud of. I hoped that they could see me for what I had accomplished for myself, despite the circumstances I was given and the mistakes I'd made.

I heard footsteps coming from the hallway. I looked over at the doorway and saw a multitude of people lined up in the hall and had no clue what was happening until I saw two nurses wheeling out someone attached to life support equipment. I had heard the ceremony referred to as the March of Honor. It was honoring the decision and sacrifice of a person who in life, decided to become an organ donor and whose organs would be used to save someone else. Of course, I had never actually seen the ceremony taking place nor had I needed to. It was sobering to think that my father could have been laying there on the stretcher, being kept alive by machines until they harvested the necessary organs, but he wasn't, by God's grace. I personally believed that if my body could save someone else, why shouldn't it? That was why I became an organ donor. Seeing the ceremony made me more grateful for the fact that I still had my father because on that fateful day in August, if the telephone pole and road had won, I wouldn't have had one.

As it was, he wasn't the same man who raised me, my brothers and sister. That made me angry because I wanted my child to know that man. That man was the one who taught me to walk while I held his hip pocket and would cook breakfast on Sunday while my sister, my stepmom and I would sit on top of the kitchen table listening to country music. He was the one who, while I was in a set of casts from my hips to my ankles at fourteen, guided me through my first menstrual cycle because my stepmom was at work. I was scared as hell. He stood me up and there were pink stains on the sheets and I lost it.

*Oh my God. Dad! Everything is still too swollen! This isn't supposed to happen right now! What should I do?”

He was totally fine. He looked at me, saying,

“ It's gonna be okay. I just gotta find a bathing suit. Then I'll call Mom. I've got you.”

I couldn't stop crying. Eventually, the tears gave way to laughter, which made me cry for a totally different reason. He got me back in bed and went upstairs. He came back with the bottom half of a bathing suit that tied on both sides at my hip. I asked him what he was doing and he said,

“Adapting and improvising. You'll see.”

He took out the hems to stretch them and sewed them so they could fit over my casted hips. I had to laugh at myself because I looked absolutely comical.

“Thank you Dad. You saved my dignity here.” I said this with a smile. Momma walked through the door from work and I didn't even have to explain what happened. She just nodded. I answered her nod with a four word sentence.

“Yes ma'am, it did.”

“Are you okay?,” she asked me with concern.

“I'm fine. It just caught me by surprise because everything is still swollen and the doctor told me that I wouldn't be starting this until I unswelled. Thanks, Mom.” I said this with more confidence than I felt.

It was memories like this I wanted my child to remember when they looked back on their relationship with their grandfather. I wanted them to know the man who I grew up with and who loved and raised me. It left me angry and raw because I lost that man August 1, 2020.

The man who had taken the place of the man that I remembered and loved was someone that I didn't recognize. He was angrier than I ever remembered him being. That became obvious when he started laying hands on me in anger. That scared me. I wanted and still want the parents I remember back. I fell asleep thinking about this.