9th GTBAD Letter

October 22, 2006

 

Life is full of choices that range from the mundane and simple of choosing what we want to eat, to the life altering choices we must make at times.  There is even a third type of choice that occurs in impossible situations.  It is during these situations that it seems we have to have no choices, when in fact we have two:  to accept that you cannot change things and continue having hope that things will work out for the best or to try to change the impossible and live with despair and regret.   In life, the life altering choices and the impossible situations are what make us into the people we are.    

When I was writing to you last year, I was being faced with both an impossible situation and a life altering choice that needed to be made.  I was in pulmonary failure, and there wasn’t a whole lot that could be done.  I was scared, my family was scared, and my friends were scared, and I didn’t know what to do.  If I were to stay in Nashville at Vanderbilt, I would have continued to try to do everything in my power to keep up with classes hurting myself more than I needed to by pursuing my biggest dream of all, attending a prestigious university to get my degree in biomedical engineering.  My other option was to come home to Colorado and give up my dream.  I always thought that no matter what I would choose to stick with it and do my best, but in the end I could not in all honesty do so.  It was perhaps the most heartbreaking decision I could ever make, even more so than the decisions that I made nine years ago on October 22.  You see, I had spent the last ten years of my life working extremely hard in school to be able to accomplish this dream, and by going home I was giving up one of the last dreams I had since I was a child, something I could never have back.  For a while I lost hope, something that even nine years ago I had in abundance.  Somehow I believed that by going off to college, I would magically become this “normal” person, and for those two semesters at Vandy I tried my hardest to be that person.  Last year I came to the realization though that I would not ever truly be “normal”, and that by not accepting who I am, I was hurting myself greatly.  I came home at the end of October last year for good.  Those first few months were not good ones by any means.  Ask my parents and they’ll tell you I was a real pain.  I was still struggling greatly with my health, and I was struggling with my emotions and loss.  So I dyed my hair red, became a little rebellious, and did what it seems I do, survived.  As with everyone, I have good days and I have bad days, and then one day in perhaps April it hit me.  When God closes a door, he opens a window.  It is up to me now to find new dreams, dreams that accommodate who I am today, not who I was yesterday. 

Scott and Yvonne's engagement photo.

             So, I started school again this summer taking two classes at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, finally completing my first college semester.  It only took me two and a half years.  This semester I kept a pretty light schedule too, taking three classes with a total of ten credit hours.  I’m still searching for answers about what I will do with school, and getting a degree, but for now I am having fun just messing around and taking classes that sound cool.  I also had the honor and pleasure to see my brother get married to this sweet girl named Yvonne in August, something I never thought I would live to see.  Also, for the past four weeks, I’ve been going rock climbing with the National Sports Center for the Disabled up in Eldardo Canyon, which by the way is SO AWESOME, and I am looking forward to hitting the slopes this winter for the first time in three years. The biggest event for me though, is that coming up in February I will have the joy to celebrate my 21^st birthday with all my friends and family.  Yippee!!  I might be going to Las Vegas with my parents, brother and sister-in-law, and possibly some friends, and I am planning on having a time to remember.

That's me on the rock.

            My Glad to Be Alive Day, is about the choices we make everyday.  To wake up and appreciate the possibilities that each day can hold, and that when we come to troubled times, to not let ourselves become swamped with despair. William James once said “Be not afraid of life.  Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create that fact”.  I learned that lesson again this year, and it is my privilege, to once again be able to share that with those who I consider my family.  I hope that you will continue to celebrate this day with me, as you might have in years past.  I want to also thank those who were a great help to me last year, without you I would not be in the good place that I am today.  And to those Angels on Earth, all the people who keep me sane and healthy up at Children’s Hospital, you have my undying support, love, and unending thanks.

 

Happy 9^th Glad to Be Alive Day, my family!  And I will leave you with this quote:

Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow is only a vision.  But today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. 

“The Salutation of the Dawn”, a Sanskirt Prayer.

                               

For the original version of this letter, click here.