Chronic

by Michelle Read DeGarmo

I’ve had chronic pain for 26 years because of a car accident. The seatbelt that saved my life caused irreparable nerve and tendon damage. Because I survived that car accident, I live in pain.

October is a time of heightened grief awareness for me. It’s the start of my favorite season and the anniversary of my partner’s death. October took me by surprise this year, with all the other things happening in the world. So I’m thinking about grief and my car accident. There’s a parallel between them.

I don’t think about the car accident every time I notice shoulder pain. When life gets stressful and I forget the physical therapy exercises that keep my left arm from becoming useless ballast, I don’t curse the seatbelt when my hand can no longer hold a coffee cup.

I don’t think about Marvin’s death every time grief sneaks up on me. When I suddenly feel as if a large stone has been placed on my chest, I touch the soft place at the base of my throat, thank the man who helped me get to this place in my life, and move on. I earned this grief, it’s mine to carry for the remainder of my time in the world. I loved our life, and I love the one I’m living now. Like the seatbelt that both saved and broke me, my life today would not have been possible without those scars.

Chronic pain, whether from a seatbelt or grief, is just the thing that happened next after the crash. It’s mine, and it means I lived.