It was the 4th of February in the year of 2024 I was involved in a near fatal motor vehicle accident. I sustained significant injuries that were life altering. That following November I experienced the tragic loss of my sister and then subsequently diagnosed with a heart condition.

The other night I was awakened out of my sleep from a nightmare. It came after being subjected to PTSD triggers. When this happens you awaken with all the same feelings that were present during the main traumatic event. The re-living of that experience over and over again will change even the strongest person but life must go on. What happened has happened and now a part of me exists within the reality of Post Traumatic Stress, of which currently is only a provisional diagnosis. I am waiting for a diagnostic assessment. I was busy living my life and thinking about moving forward. Then all of a sudden I get this rude awakening, a nightmare. For some, that nightmare is not necessarily based in reality but for me, this nightmare is the reliving of the accident that almost took my life.

When tragedy hits life just doesn’t slow down. The world keeps turning. It will leave you behind if you allow it to. It takes courage, strength, and fortitude, and being intentional every step of the way to somehow embrace a new normal so that the rhythm of life can be once again embraced.

In an interview Stephen Colbert had with Anderson Cooper, he said “It’s a gift to exist and with existence comes suffering. There’s no escaping that. But, if you are grateful for your life, which I think is a positive thing to do… um… not everybody is and not… I’m not always… but it’s the most positive thing to do… then you have to be grateful for all of it. You can’t pick and choose what you’re grateful for, and then, so, what do you get from loss? You get awareness of other people’s loss which allows you to connect with that other person. It allows you to love more deeply and to understand what it’s like to be a human being and to connect with them and to love them in a deep way that not only accepts that all of us suffer but also then makes you grateful for the fact that you have suffered and so too, you can know this about other people… it’s about the fullness of your humanity. What’s the point in being here and being human if you can’t be the most human that you can be? I’m not saying best because you’re gonna be a bad person, and a most human. I wanna be the most human I can be and that involves acknowledgement and ultimately being grateful for the things that I wish didn’t happen because they gave me a gift,” Stephen Colbert said this in response to Anderson Cooper questioning what Stephen meant by, “What punishment of God are not gifts?”

I suppose you can feel that the tragedy, loss, and suffering are likened to being punished by God but perhaps it’s not so much a punishment but God in His providence giving us the strength and courage to rise up out from the ashes towards something new and redeeming such tragedy, suffering, and loss. After all, redemption is kinda sorta God’s thing; so we can do life in the frailty of our humanity knowing we can, through all of this and because of this, extend empathy and compassion to others who might need a friend.

There is nothing more human than this:

To look at another and say “I see you and you are not alone”