The Remaking of Life

Erin Brown
Future Alumni Essay Contest
2018 Runner-up

In her book, Epilogue: A Memoir, Anne Roiphe writes, “Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life.” I’ve experienced great loss several times throughout my life. But the second part of grief, the remaking of life, has always alluded me. That is, until last year. This Fall I enrolled at Trident Technical College. And with that step, I began my journey into renewed life and a newfound hope.

Five years ago, my world fell apart. I had just given birth to my second child when my 3-year-old son, Miles, was rushed to the emergency room. He’d been sick for a few days. We weren’t too concerned though because a bug was going around his pre-school, and his symptoms were similar to those of his classmates. But when he began acting disoriented, we decided to take him to an urgent care center. From there he was sent to the ER for observation. While we were waiting for the doctor to come in, Miles had a grand mal seizure in my arms and became unconscious. We later found out that he had contracted bacterial meningitis. After a month in the hospital and another month of in-patient rehab, Miles came back home. He had been brought back from the brink of death, and I was eternally thankful. The meningitis, however, left him with moderate brain damage.

At home, we started on the long road of recovery and rehabilitation. I stopped work in order to care for Miles full-time. The meningitis left him with complications that required frequent hospitalizations, and with all the doctor appointments, therapies, and new challenges, we were kept very busy. I saw Miles take great strides in his occupational, physical, and speech therapies. He had many victories and setbacks, but faced them all with a courage and determination that inspired me. Every hospitalization seemed like it put him back at square one, but he never gave up. He kept at it with unwavering enthusiasm. It filled me with hope and joy to see him conquer new challenges with each therapy session.

Then the unthinkable happened. In December, two days before Christmas, Miles passed away. He’d had a brain hemorrhage. He was seven years old. It was a shock. He struggled with health complications from the meningitis, but no one, not even the doctors and specialists, expected this. Five years earlier, I felt as if my world had fallen apart. Now it had disappeared entirely. All the work, all of Miles’ determination, enthusiasm, setbacks, victories, they all seemed meaningless. When Miles died, all my hope died with him.

While it’s true there’s no real closure to grief and the pain never fully goes away, I’ve learned through counseling that by leaning into the grief and not running away from it, there can be a kind of peace.  Slowly, light crept back into my soul. The light revealed that, even if broken, the shards of my world were still there. They just needed to be put back together again. And in order to find the relief of peace that I so desperately longed for, I needed to work on doing just that. But How? Where do I even start?

In May I received a letter from the organ donation organization. It said that because of Miles’ liver and kidney donation, another little boy now has a new hope for life. It occurred to me that even though Miles is no longer on this earth, his life is still giving life. It’s still giving hope. This realization mobilized me. For the first time since Miles’ passing, I felt hope. If in some small way Miles’ life was being carried on, why am I not living my own?

But how I do I start? I knew I wanted to somehow help people with the challenges of living with special needs, to be by their side so they wouldn’t have to face it alone. I witnessed first-hand how crucial it is to have talented therapists walking along side of you. Therapy was a life-line not only for Miles, but also for me as his mom and caretaker. I wished I had the background to work in some in some kind of rehabilitative service, occupational therapy in particular. I have a degree in communication, but nothing that would qualify me for doing something like that. Going back to school was out of the question. As a fulltime caretaker for a special needs child, I had been out of the workforce for over five years. My finances were strapped. I also didn’t want a crazy schedule to keep me from being with my youngest son. Other than that, I didn’t know if I had what it took to go back to school. I hadn’t taken a college class in nearly 18 years!

Flipping through a TTC catalog, I noticed their Occupational Therapy Assistant Program. After doing a little research, I found that tuition was much less than I had thought, only a fraction of what I paid for my previous college courses. The schedule wasn’t really an obstacle either. The seven-week length courses with several different time options were perfect for my priority of spending time with my son. It sounded great. I just didn’t know if I could do it.

The Friday before Fall classes were to begin, I finally mustered up the courage to see a TTC advisor. He was able to meet with me that day and worked with me until we found a course schedule that fit my needs perfectly. My instructors are excellent too, especially my Anatomy and Physiology professor. He did whatever it took to help me understand the material to enable me to succeed. My confidence and determination has more than tripled.

Now it fills me with hope and joy every time I conquer new challenges with each class session. Along with Miles, Trident Tech has given me the courage to begin the remaking of life.