"Angels Do Exist."

It's April.  April is always a difficult month for me.  But I've been here all year.  Quiet.  Not sure what to write or say. I've got blog entries back piled as Drafts that I've tried to work on.  But they are still blank.

Then 1/3 of the year is gone.

I see old men or women in walkers, trying to get off the curb of the sidewalk to get down to the parking lot to get into their car.  They can't do it alone.  No one stops.  I've seen a kid with calipers on both arms stuck on the wrong side of a bathroom door struggling to open it because no one would help her.  I've seen a woman in a motorized scooter drive up to a restaurant door and struggle to try and reach it over the steering controls because no one would stop to open it for her.

They all seemed grateful when I helped them, but stunned and surprised at the same time, as though they are just used to people passing them by to go on with their own lives.

I won't forget the time my van was broken down in a hospital parkinglot.  I had to push it while my sister tried to steer it into a parking space.  We're talking about an older Chevy Astrovan here.  As hard as I tried -- I just could not push it alone.

An elderly woman saw me as she was driving past in her car.  She kept going.  But she told me she couldn't stop thinking about seeeing us there struggling with that van like that.  She told me she thought - what if those were my girls? Then she told me she realised - they *are* someone's girls.

So she told me she came back.

I was touched.  I was speechless.  And even though I didn't say it I was doubtful that she (I say this with utmost respect) a frail old woman, could really help.

She did.  She got up behind the van with me and between the two of us we pushed it easily into a parking space.  I was stunned.  I learned more than one lesson that day.  I thanked her.  She went on her way.  I will never see her again.  But I will never forget that either.  I've blogged about this incident before here and I probably will again.

I want you to know right now as I post this --- I am absolutely not perfect.  I am guilty of passing people by. Sometimes on purpose.  Sometimes without thinking.  But I am trying to do better about seeing them and helping.  My grandmother died this past winter.

Like the old woman and the van when she realised we were 'someone's girls'.  These people who just need you to open a door for them are someone's grandma, they are someone's daughter.  These people are people too.

So I've been gone for 4 months.  Trying to find a way to start blogging here again.  Wondering if this blog was past it's time and it didn't make much of an impact in the grand scheme of things anyway.  No one reads here so why do I keep it up?

Then, this is what I found.  Please watch it.  Please understand why this blog is still here.  This isn't about me.  Its not about readers or getting comments.  It's not just about the kids and people overseas.  It's about people here too.  Its about people everywhere.  Watch to the end for the title of this post.

Nine Years...

...I keep track.  My brain and my heart still cannot help it.  Nine years since my world changed forever.  Nine years since caught in a collapse that I had seen coming at the time, but denied, and with all my heart and body tried to hold back.

It was a moment that would change my life forever -- and these are not just words I type.  If what happened today nine years ago did not happen: my life would be drastically different now.

I did it wrong.  I know that now.

What you say -- does matter.

And I wonder even if I did it different if it would have made a difference somehow.  Or if, by the time this day came to pass nine years ago, it was far too late to stop it.

I was younger.  I was naive. But I still believe in the things I believed in back then.  The things I believed in were not the problem.  And I have difficulty feeling those things now.  But I am stronger now too. And will not give up on me.  I will not.  I will not give up on being happy. 

It is vague for you all and I am sorry. But this is a marker for me.  Getting it in physical lasting form that says I am still here.  I survived.  Its been nine years.

I read somewhere recently, actually on the blog of Angie Smith, something she wrote in a blog post:

The roots go deeper than you think
You only see part of the page
You are still a young tree

Effectively, that is what the words she wrote said.

They stunned me in that moment.  I needed to hear them.  To see them and read them.  They go up there to me with the 'No Truer Words' Catagory.  And this year... this year I needed to hear them.  And already I've been reflecting on them alot.

Would I change what happened then if I could?

I don't know.

I have learned so much through it.  Became a different person through it.  Met many other people because of it.  But I just don't know if I would change it.  Because I sometimes miss parts of the person I was then.

I survived.  I look back on it now and read the notebooks I kept back then, now.. and my heart just breaks for the girl whom I was when I wrote that at the time.  I remember her so vividly.  And all her pain.  It is raw and real there in those pages.

But she survived.  She didn't think she would.  Never doubt the power of prayer, family, and friends.

I don't really think everyone leaves an age behind them as the next birthday hits them.

Somewhere inside me, there is still a 15 year old that hurts and feels with 15 year old feelings.  There is still a 22 year old.  There is still a 27 year old... and so on.

And each of them make us who and what we are now.  That's what I think anyway. Who would have imagined then that I would come this far?

God bless, everyone.  Goodnight.

--Debrah
04.17.2018