Damaged

I hurt my back while I was on my mission. We had been helping a family move for three days (they were not very well prepared for the move). I put a washer in the trailer with a dolly and then, after my companion had taken the dolly to get some other things, I realized that the washer needed to be a few inches further in. I bent over and tried to pick it up, but couldn't. I also couldn't stand up. I spent the next few days laying on the couch or my bed or hobbling between the two. I went to a doctor, but he was Arabic and the only language that he spoke that I could kind of understand was Swedish. I think he said I had inflamed something in my back and he gave me a prescription for some kind of arthritis medicine.

I took the medicine like he said, and eventually the pain in my back went away. Even after the pain was gone, though, I could still tell I was damaged. I have felt that way ever since. Even when I have been in very good health (I did well on my PT test on Thursday, for example), I have always known that my back could just decide to give out at any time. Occasionally I'll get small reminders--minor spasm when I take a funny step or sit down the wrong way. Other times I get major reminders, and I'm not able to stand up straight for days at a time. I've learned to live with it and I try not to complain much about it. It's part of my life.

Losing Laila has felt very similar, except that, instead of my body being damaged, it's my heart. Even after the pain had largely gone, I still knew I was damaged. When I feel happy, there's always a little darkness overshadowing. Sometimes I get minor reminders that I'm damaged--little jolts of sadness that momentarily shoot through me--other times, I get major reminders--when I feel like I won't ever be happy again.

Tonight brought one of those major reminders. Since Laila died, we've notice a lot of rainbows. They seem to be all over the place. We point them out to the boys and suggest that perhaps they're from Laila--that she's saying, "hi," through the colors. Tonight Adrianne and I watched a movie, and at the end of the movie a song (click here to hear it) started playing that was familiar, but I didn't quite recognize it. I knew it was song that Adrianne liked, and I said, "Hey, it's your song." To which she replied, "I haven't heard this song since we had our Luau." Her response brought to my mind memories of dancing around to the song with Laila in my arms, as the boys tried to go under a limbo stick. Then the words of the song came, "Some where, over the rainbow..."

I'm learning to live with this damage just as I did with my back. I try not to complain about it, and I don't want to talk about it, but sometimes I just want everyone to know that I still hurt.