“I Can See Clearly Now…”

As I reflect on my life, my memories seem to run like a video tape through a VCR. I rewind and fast-forward, sometimes pausing at happy memories; other times I stop at more sobering events that seem to stand alone. Our memories mark milestones, turning points and celebrations. In this case, a recollection of a time when my mother gave me something I couldn’t give myself: Hope.

It was March 1997, and I was getting ready to take a vacation with my children. My pre-trip checklist included an eye exam - something I only did when my glasses broke; they had.
“One…or two?” asked the optometrist.
“One.”
“Two…or three?”
“Uhmmm…”
(Eyeglasses are one prescription you can’t blame the doctor for if they’re wrong.)
“Three?”
The doctor flipped on the fluorescents overhead.
“I can’t figure it out, Ms. Murray, but I can’t seem to get your vision back to 20/20.”
“Maybe I should’ve said two not three.” I half-jokingly wondered aloud. I decided to go on vacation and consult a “more capable” doctor when we returned.
For those next six months, my video memories are strung in soundless blurs. Every once in a while, the tape slows to quarter-speed, and faceless doctors drawl:
“I want you to see a specialist…”
“Close your eyes - does this feel sharp or dull?”
“We’ll have to run more tests…”

I was drowning in a tsunami of words: lesions, neuropathies, lumbar puncture; then the shattering conclusion: Multiple Sclerosis. In an instant, I went from drowning to washing up on the beach gasping for breath. Grasping those words was like trying to clutch the air we breathe. The VCR was now eating the tape; the video comes to a grinding halt with a distorted image on the screen. “Are they NUTS?” I screamed in my head. “I went in for a freaking EYE EXAM!! I’m only 26...I have two kids, work - I’m NORMAL!”

I don’t remember leaving the doctor’s, but I do recall an immediate feeling of having been branded. Wasn’t I the same person I had been that morning? I didn’t feel any different but apparently I was.

I vividly remember standing in my parent’s kitchen, sobbing like a baby. I must have driven there. The video now flashes to my mother, her hands holding my face and wiping my tears. Strength in her eyes, voice cloaking a heart I am certain was breaking, “Shannon, we will get through this.” Her words will never leave me. Six words that gave me hope; that let me know I was not alone. Since that moment we have walked through this together, my family and I.

That was nearly ten years, and thousands of feet of “video” ago. Yes, my life has changed, but not in the ways I had imagined. Yes, it took time, and I have struggled to accept without surrendering. I never believed then that life would have more essence now than it ever did before; my mother did.