Just Breathe....

It is amazing how our minds and our hearts will reconcile events for us. In the midst of trying to understand what is going on in his mind, I find I am also on my own mental journey. I am exploring each day how I deal with things, how I process them and make sense of things. We are now knee deep in starting his physical therapy and learning about stimulation, and perception. They are getting him up to a sitting position and he is putting some weight on his legs as he sits. He continues to make sounds, vocal sounds they call them. They operate from the perspective that he is not asleep, but has lost the ability to perform certain functions including how to communicate. Their therapy involves "retraining" him how to do these things. He is making some progress. He clearly tried to form a word today. He lifted his right arm again, and continues to move his legs frequently. Baby steps they tell us. They continue to instruct us how to provide stimulation in intervals with rest/processing time in between. They explain how the mind works, and how the routine will benefit him, trigger things in his mind. These conversations, always on my mind, have caused me to think more of my own responses. To be more aware of the little things that I do each day. The things in my environment that I pick up on, things that are subtle and perhaps on a "normal" day, would filter right by me with out a second glance. I know that I am a person who often gets an odd song or phrase stuck in my head, and it will trail through there for days. I have noticed that my mind tends to pull up these things that give me comfort. Sometimes it is a movie title " while you were sleeping" that pops into my head. Other times it is a song, the other day it was the refrain from Greensleeves not a commonly thought of song, but my mind pulled the message out, or made the correlation of the message to my thoughts of the day. I was humming the song, long before I figured out why I was humming it and what significance it had. On the surface, the song itself has nothing to do with him or this situation, but my mind took it there. Gave me a little something to distract me. Today as I was driving over to see him, Faith Hill's Breathe came on the radio, and while I could not tell you a song that was on before or after, I can say that my brain immediately plucked a connection out and brought it to my consciousness. I started singing the song, thinking about him.

"I can feel the magic floating in the air Being with you gets me that way I watch the sunlight dance across your face And I've never been this swept away All my thoughts just seem to settle on the breeze When I'm lying wrapped up in your arms The whole world just fades away The only thing I hear Is the beating of your heart CHORUS: Cause I can feel you breathe It's washing over me And suddenly I'm melting into you There's nothing left to prove Baby, all we need is just to be Caught up in the touch Slow and steady rush Baby, isn't that the way that Love's suppose to be I can feel you breathe "

My mind brought it to my attention. Made me stop and think, and breathe. Think about what I have today, not about what I miss from yesterday, or what is coming tomorrow. I think if my mind works for me in this crazy mixed up way, pulling odd things out to comfort me, to point me in a new direction, to keep me on my path, then I imagine that his is doing the same thing right now. We do not know what little thing will spark a memory, a thought or a feeling. We don't know what his brain is pulling together for him right now. I know from becoming more aware of my own consciousness, that it is a very deep well. A well with all kinds of important and not so important information swirling around inside of it. For now, I am going to trust that his brain is filtering that information like mine does, in a totally random and seemingly irrational process. Today I take my cues from the song my own mind chose to filter in for me. Today I just Breathe.