New Year/New Amsterdam/New Awareness

Anyone else out there a New Amsterdam viewer? No? Guess the show isn't what matters so much as what happened while I watched the most recent episode.

I woke early, an ache and discomfort in my neck and shoulders keeping me from falling back to sleep. Figured I would watch the dvr'd episode, one of the final in the final season...one of the best, in my opinion. 

So I sat in the dark, television glowing, the only light in the deep dark of a January morning. A group of doctors on a spur of the moment guided hike up a mountain, resulting, of course, in a fall by the guide, life threatening. In the other plot thread, a doctor operates on a dear friend's only son, additionally hampered by life threatening radiation exposure.

Life, or death.

The hiking doctors must amputate the guide's foot to free her from the boulder pinning her down, in order to save her from certain death as a rock slide is imminent.

The heart surgeon must stay to revive the boy's heart while the radiation removal team demands he leave immediately as overexposure is imminent.

I love this show. I have no buy in with the two peripheral characters facing death. 

As one doctor begins the amputation, I fast forward. As one doctor fights to restart a boy's heart, I fast forward.

I didn't realize I was crying until tears plopped onto my hand, cupped beneath my chin. 

I knew both situations would most likely resolve in a positive end, but I couldn't watch. I fast forwarded through the climactic drama. My heart simply couldn't. 

I cried as the surgeon watched his friends, the boy's parents, thanking him and rejoicing in the saved life of their son. I cried as the stranded doctors were spotted by the rescue helicopter from the darkened woods.

But I couldn't watch the real drama.

As I sat on my couch in the dark, Frankie curled upon the blanket on my feet, something about what was happening shook me. In real life, things have happened that could have ended me; but, I knew, I learned, I accepted, that the only way to get through the dark times was to go through them. 

There is no fast forward button in real life. However terrible, going through those things has honed my awareness of the suffering of others. However destructive, going through those things has gifted me with the ability to understand, to recognize in others a pain and suffering they can keep from the eyes of others.

Each of the doctors 'must' do the things they did, but they didn't, not really. There were other options. The hikers could have left the guide, saved themselves, walked away from the falling rocks before they plummeted downward. The surgeon could have left the operating room, walked out of the radiated room before he was overly exposed.

I didn't have to get up every morning after my son died, after my brother died, after days that grief amputated pieces of my heart. I chose, choose, to keep going, to move forward, to look back and acknowledge the terrible destruction littering my past but not succumb to the after effects. 

This year my 'word' is Receive. I choose to Receive what life offers; Receive its gifts in the good things; Receive the hidden gifts that lie camouflaged in difficulties. I choose to Receive all of it, make the most of it, and do my best.

I may need to fast forward through the high drama. I may need to be overexposed, to risk some painful moments.

As I look over my shoulder, my past gives a little wave. There will be tears, trembling smiles, and a pull to what was; but forward I stride. Not because I must, but because it is a choice worth the tough spots.