First a Confession, Then Dog Poop
Even before Hans arrived at the Shock Trauma Center just over a month ago I knew it was bad. Hans had left Assateague State Park bound for the Shock Trauma Center but did not initially make it as he became unstable in flight. The crew diverted to Salisbury Regional Medical Center just 25 miles from the Park.With the knowledge gained in my former EMT days with a volunteer Rescue Squad, coupled with the information given me from various sources as that first night and next day wore on (his friends who were with him that night, the nurse practitioner who happened to be there at the campground and assessed Hans before EMS arrived, the firefighter who was the first responder, the first neurosurgeon to see him at the hospital in Salisbury before he arrived in Baltimore) made me aware me it wasn’t good.
When I first saw Hans lying in that hospital bed fresh off the helicopter, I knew his soul was off on a new adventure and we were just keeping his body alive.
From that moment and even more so after he died a week later, I thought I’d never eat again. I couldn’t imagine smiling, or laughing, or whistling again, the last of which my kids teased me endlessly as I made up random harmonies to songs as they played, even songs I didn’t know.
It was that first night that I wailed. It was truly an inhuman sound, and I wanted to beat my chest and collapse onto the floor. I had to bury my head into Eric’s chest, the strong chest of my wonderful husband who kept me standing, because my sounds were so loud, so raw, so physical. I was devastated. I knew. But Eric didn’t know. Zatha didn’t know.
It was after that first night and day, after Zatha heard me tell multiple family members over the phone how bad it was that she gave me a ‘thumping.’ She was angry that I was being negative (I call it realistic) and reminded me of what I always told them: be positive, and if you want something (a miracle) you have to ask/pray specifically for it. If you don’t ask then you most likely wouldn’t get it. Much like their grandpa always told them too: if you don’t even apply for a program or job, then you’ll surely never even be given the chance to say ‘yes,’ you’ll definitely never get it. So apply. She reminded me I had to be positive, to ask for a miracle. Her definition of a miracle, however, was different from mine.
Zatha, in her precious, hopeful, youthful innocence was believing in the kind of miracles one reads about in books like “Heaven is for Real,” upon which they’ve made the movie (which I haven’t seen, and I’m only half way through the book). It’s a good book with some good messages, but I find myself questioning the definition of magical healing highlighted in the book. The author finds his four-year-old son ‘magically’ healed by God from a ruptured appendix. I believe God is in the miracle that is the doctors’ knowledge of treatments. God is in the miracle of the energy of the cells in the body healing. God is in the miracles that are the nurses’ hands and in their loving care. I don’t believe that we are always granted miraculous physical healing, like Jesus was able to offer to the blind and the deaf and the lame, because Jesus is not physically walking beside us to perform those mysterious healings now (though he does continually offer and bring spiritual healing). Zatha was praying for Hans to walk out of the hospital, to soon be fully healed and kitesurf again. Eric, the nuclear scientist, needed the data before he would come to any conclusion at all. The Tuesday MRI provided terms for the Wednesday meeting, terms like: Diffuse Axonal Injury, lesions 1-15mm, biochemical cascades, proteolytic degradation, Wallerian degeneration, retraction bulbs, cytoskeleton degeneration will continue for two weeks, no value in doing Diffusion Tensor Imaging as the MRI clearly shows severe damage in the brain stem, corpus callosum, cerebral hemispheres, cerebral cortex, the thalamus...
Eric asked, in a strong voice at first then his voice trembled and ending with a whisper, a final question to the medical team of 10 sitting before us:
“The literature says, ‘Patients who sustain severe DAI are unconscious from the moment of impact, do not experience a lucid interval, and remain unconscious, vegetative or at least severely disabled until death.’ Do you agree with that statement?” They all solemnly nodded their heads in the affirmative and some said as softly as they could, to an already grieving family, “Yes.”
That stark data showing severe brain damage, in all portions of Hans's formerly incredible brain, with no hope/miracle of being healed/getting better was Eric’s slap of reality. It was bad. God designed this body ‘part,’ the brain, without self-healing capabilities (though after some damage from severe concussions, or strokes, etc. portions of the brain can ‘rewire’ with training) and this final diagnosis was what Eric needed to come to terms with Hans’s pending death.
So for that week that we were in the hospital with Hans, we were each on our own schedule of revelation and acceptance. I knew right away. Eric realized it the night after Hans’s MRI but before we met with the doctors to discuss it. I don’t think Zatha fully really realized it until she gave Hans his last salute as his bed was rolled out of the ICU room. We each also realized that our schedule wasn’t/isn’t the only one that matters – we had to and will continue to respect the fabric of which we are honored to be part: the fabric of Hans’s life which included Alexis, our extended family, the U.S. Naval Academy, Hans’s friends who were with him the day of his accident and fellow future warriors, his many, many other friends, and even the schedules of the recipients of Hans’s organs. There we were, ebbing and flowing with acceptance, until we all eventually flowed together in the stream toward Hans’s death.
Eric returned home to North Carolina and work just after Hans’s funeral, while I stayed in Annapolis another week before heading back home myself. Eric told me when he got back that he was wonderfully overwhelmed (and we continue to be, thank you all!) with the outpouring of support – dog care, mail collection, cleaning, meals, cards, gifts, etc. After being home for a day or two alone, however, he realized that despite all the bad and the good of the last few weeks, he still needed to pick up all the accumulated dog poop in the yard from our dog, Floppy, who didn't come with us to Annapolis those few weeks ago. He says this with a smile, in that despite horrifying, tragic, life-changing events experienced by us and our fellow man across the globe every minute of every day throughout humanity, we all eventually need to get back into life and continue to pick up that dog poop, real and proverbial. Our taxes needed to be signed. Zatha, Alexis, Brandon, Sam, and Jeffrey had to return to classes, finish papers due, and pass inspections. I am busy distributing death certificates to close out accounts, process insurance paperwork, and plan a local memorial celebration of Hans’s beautiful life.
And I have eaten again, smiled a little, laughed some, and whistled occasionally again because we have felt the love and joy of live people around us. We smile with pride at Zatha’s strength and anticipate with joy her upcoming graduation from the Naval Academy and life as a future Marine Corps officer (ooh rah!). We laugh with Peter, Zeke, Brandon, Sam, Jeffery, Chris and all of Hans’s friends as they share with us more funny stories of Hans’s antics. We smile at the sweet stories Alexis shares of Hans’s sweet love for her. I whistle while listening to songs and while walking the dogs and picking up their dog poop. We smile at the incredible outpouring of condolences, stories of shared suffering, unshared suffering, and of happy things. These happy things don’t yet outweigh our grief right now but they certainly help balance the scale as we heal.
As we continue to grieve, Zatha asked me how could she ever shine again like Hans without him here. He was the only other person to really understand her, her history, our history as a family, the one person with whom she could be truly open and honest and silly. I gladly popped out another analogy for her. We are being forced to rid our nation of incandescent light bulbs and use only fluorescent or LED lighting. The light spectrum of fluorescent and LED bulbs is different but they offer the same number of lumens. Our lives are kind of like that now. We may not have Hans with us in his physical body, his old light spectrum. We can still shine but it is with a new kind of light, one that can shine just as brightly.
P.S. Hans loved dogs. One can tell a man is good if he loves dogs. Hans didn’t like picking up dog poop however. Hans especially loved Floppy, our mischievous border collie/blue heeler mix and he was buried with a small clipping of her hair. Here is a video Hans made of Floppy showing us how mischievous she really is (pay special attention to the skillet of green beans on the stove). After posting this video to his YouTube account, he was contacted by the producers of “Animal Planet: Bad Dog,” who troll the internet looking for new footage and discovered his video. Hans was paid $100 for Floppy’s 20 seconds of fame on a show he had never seen before.
