Undefeated

My husband’s Alive Day just recently passed.  It’s been six years. Boy, how time does fly, but it really seems like a lifetime ago.  Prior to his injury, I would have never understood how those two could be used in the same sentence to describe something, until I had a child.  In the sense of describing how you blink an eye, and you can’t imagine your life prior to such a major event.  Except, the two things I am describing are on complete opposite ends of the spectrum, one is one of the worst things that can happen, and the other brings about a joy that I can’t put into words. 

I can’t imagine my life without my husband’s injury. I do find myself guilty of wondering sometimes how different his life, my life, and our daughter’s life would be if we were “normal.”  Then I think, if I could just take away his pain; never mind a normal life, just let him be pain free.  I will probably never stop wishing that for him.  However, I have come to realize that as far as our family goes, the grass is not greener on the other side.  As I sit and think about how far we as a family have come, and see the strides my husband has made in the past 6 years, I could not be more proud.  Instead of letting his injury defeat him, he fights back EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

I see him struggle to sleep at night, and then struggle to get up in the morning because he hasn’t slept but for 2 hours.  But he gets up, and he goes to school, and then he comes home and plays with our daughter.  He has a will power that is unbreakable, and it’s unbelievable to me. He doesn’t want to be defeated, but he also wants to help other soldiers and veterans not be defeated.  There are some days he does not win, but as the years go on, those days are fewer and farther between.  He does not let his injury define him, he has used it as motivation, to help motivate others that got dealt a bad card.  For that he will always be someone I look up to and strive to be like, my hero!