Leaving'

It was Father's Day, you see. I had spent most of the night before packing. I checked my things to make sure that I had what I thought I was going to need, and then put them where I thought I would be able to find them all. I packed the bike up and took her out for a short ride to make sure that the load she was carrying was balanced. I did all this to make sure that I would have a bit of quality time with everyone, before setting out.

For the past 16 years I had been taking care of my family. I hadn't really asked for much. With Drew's line of work, I never thought it odd we didn't have summer holidays. I just knew it was how things were for us. We always made the most of our weekends during the summer. We had our vacation between Christmas and New Years. Now I am poised to set out on my own personal summer vacation. I had been feeling a bit of guilt about this for some time now. But as I got closer to the date of departure, I felt less and less of it. Guilt had been replaced with excitement. I could think of nothing else and I'm sure my family was going to be happy to see me go so they wouldn't have to listen to me talk about it.

I don't really know what got me to this point. I can honestly say it wasn't any one thing, but certainly many things that had happened. As my children grew and their own personalities emerged, I realized I had lost sight of who I was. The more they gained independence, the more I was on my own. I had always had interests of my own, but never put them ahead of my family. I knew in the back of my mind one day I would have all the time in the world to pursue my interests. I guess I just never saw this day coming.

Years before, I had lost my father, who was also my good friend. That loss touched me in ways that I will never be able to put into words. I feel I was much too young to have to have gone through something like that; that it was one of the things that shaped me into the person I am today. Dealing with that loss wasn't easy for anyone in my family, most of all, my husband. I could see my pain in his face when we talked about how I was feeling. Shortly after my Dad had passed on, I pushed everything from my life, not trusting what I had known for so long. Drew stood by me and wouldn't give up knowing that I would one day find my way back.

We moved the family to Northern Ontario. It was about starting out fresh, not being surrounded with the things that reminded me of my father that helped me gain the best perspective.

Shortly after moving, I slipped and fell in the driveway. It was a bitterly cold evening, and Drew was moving the barbeque to the garage so he could make dinner. I had bought some chickens and wanted to keep them during the winter, as they had just started laying in the early fall. I was on the way to the chicken coop to take care of my chores, when Drew called out to me to help him move the barbeque. As I headed back, I slipped and fell on a patch of ice in the driveway.

A horrible noise resounded through my body as my legs gave out from under me. Instantly I felt as though I was going to be sick to my stomach. Then I felt very warm. Drew came over, and helped me up. I thought I had just knocked the wind out of myself with the fall, but when I tried to take a step, I fell down again. Then the pain registered in my brain. There was something very wrong with the way that my leg felt.

Drew helped me back to the house and I sat on the stairs looking at my right boot. My leg had swollen up and filled the boot, and what once was a loose fitting black rubber boot, now was a very tight fitting one. I knew by the sight of things that something was very wrong. Drew took me to the hospital. I didn't have to wait very long when they saw the damage that had been done to my foot, the people there where very good about taking care of me.

I spent the next five months in a wheel chair. I had broken my leg, ankle and heel. It would take surgery to place everything back as best as it could be, and then therapy to learn how to walk on it again. It was a very painful process. The bonus of this was that I now had the time to sit and think about the things I had been avoiding for some time now. It gave me a chance to see how wonderful my husband and children were, it gave me a chance to think about things that I had been running from by filling my time with chores and duties. It just plain gave me time.

While I was healing, I learned about Reiki. I learned about the powers it had to help people heal, and the peace that it could bring to one's life. I wanted to learn more about it. And I set on a quest to do just that. Little did I know at the time what Reiki would come to mean to my life.

Once the doctor had pronounced me healed and released me from his care, I set out to regain the life I had known. At the time I had been in the process of opening a small business at home, and knew once we started the business, I would need some other way to supplement my income. I found out that the First Response Team was looking for new members, and this seemed like just the thing for me. I would be able to stay at home, and be on call for any medical emergencies that came up. My training in first aid would come in handy, and make the process of completing the training much easier for me. I applied and was accepted for the job.

I felt as though I had scored one for the home team! I had a job and it would, for the most part, allow me to stay at home. When needed, I would go on a call, and be able to make a few dollars to help out the household. It seemed liked things were going to work out for us after all. I was very happy and proud. Dealing with the lows of healing, had made things look pretty dim for me. I was on an upswing again and feeling very good about life.

The noise of the house shook me back to the task at hand. Getting this trip started. I could hear from the garage the kids were waking and the house was coming to life. Andrew had been inside making coffee and tea, while I went out to check on things one last time. As much as I wanted to leave, I would have stayed if someone had said they couldn't bear me being gone for this time. In a small way, I was looking for a reason to back out. One word from Drew or the kids and I would have stayed home. Everyone came out to the garage to see what I was doing. I had managed to tie my load a bit tighter and felt better about how things were packed.

I doubted that I would be able to do this trip. Had I set myself up for failure? Life hadn't been the same for us since that horrible day in October of 1998. I had been on my way to a call for the First Response, and ended up being the one that needed a call. A dump truck had come over the hill as I was on my way into town. He was on my side of the road, and I had to head for the ditch to avoid hitting him. I corrected and got out of the ditch, but when I hit the hard part of the road my truck shot across into the other ditch. I don't remember much after this. Only waking up and trying to move and not being able to. I managed to get the passenger window open, and start calling for help. One of my neighbours saw my truck in the ditch and slowed down. Then they could hear me calling. Lorraine came to the truck, and Paul went to call for help. Lorraine held my hand and stayed with me for the whole time. The firefighters and the other First Responders came to get me out. I could tell by the looks in their faces that this wasn't good. It's hard to hide what you are thinking when you work with these people. I could hear someone crying softly, off in the distance. What did they see that I couldn't? I was airlifted to the hospital. I had no feeling from the waist down, and the doctor told my husband and I, we would have to wait for the swelling to go down, but that it didn't look like I would walk again. I had also broken my arm, and would require surgery to repair a nerve that had been severed when it broke. With any luck I would regain some use of that arm and hand again. I made up my mind, there was nothing the doctor had said that would keep me from living my life the way I had been. I would walk again, and I would show them all that a strong mind can take you anywhere.

It would be months in a body cast and then into a Jewitt brace. While in the brace, I started an intense physiotherapy program before I could even think about trying to do some of the things that I had done before the accident. I had some really bad days, wondering if all this pain was really worth the effort. I prayed that someone would just take me away from all of this and stop the pain a suffering I was feeling. I wished I had died in that accident, rather than to suffer what I was going through now. It didn't seem as though it was ever going to end. It didn't happen all at once, but bit-by-bit, day-by-day, things did get better. It would take 18 months for me to start living a normal life again.

It was the days like today, which reaffirmed just how far I had come. It had never occurred to me I would one day be riding my own motorcycle. The shadows from the breaking dawn were moving, and I wanted to warm Aurora in that sunlight as much as I could. I lifted her long gleaming kickstand and rolled her forward to where the sun now was. I headed back into the house to help with breakfast, and then I was going to start my adventure. The last of the things I wanted to take with me lay on the dining room table. There were bracelets the kids had given me and a pocketknife that Drew wanted me to take. There were earplugs and a flashlight, and all the directions I would need to get where I was going. My plan was to purchase maps as I travelled along, and these would become my souvenirs of the trip. I had some basic directions from Map Quest, but nothing really solid.

The plan was to call in each night by a certain time, and let Drew know I was safe and what my plans would be by the next day. This way he would know for sure what was happening with me. He would track my progress from the copies that I had left behind. I wanted to enjoy this trip and see all the things that caught my eye as I moved along to my final destination. Who knows if I would want to ever embark on such an undertaking again. I wanted to make the most of the one shot that I know I have, and leave it so there with no regrets, in case I couldn't do it ever again.

The smell of bacon filled the air, which reaffirmed the hunger I was feeling. The level of activity in the house was beyond belief. If I didn't know better, I would have thought that everyone was going on this adventure. The excitement was a wonderful thing to be a part of. As I set to gathering the last of my things from the table, I noticed that more and more things kept making their way to it's surface. I had a feeling the kids were trying to keep me busy enough to stop me from going. I guess they thought that they could just keep me packing things that I wouldn't leave. Their way of saying they don't want me to go. I carefully handled each item before me. I was thinking about where it had come from and what it meant to me. I thought about the person that had given it to me, and how much they meant to me. The thought of having an accident crept into my mind. I checked to make sure I had my travel insurance papers and that everything else was in order. What if I never got to come home again? Was I being selfish, wanting to go on this trip?

The noise of the toaster brought me back to my surroundings. I would be fine I told myself. Don't think thoughts like that, negative energy is not what you want to take with you, I told myself. Drew called us all to the table for breakfast. We went over the last minute details. It seemed as though we had discussed these things a thousand times. But we did it one more time. To make sure we all knew what was going to happen over the next two weeks. Now we had all memorized the details, we set to cleaning up the kitchen. Drew told me to go take care of things outside, that I didn't have to be doing this. He reminded me I had a good day of riding ahead of me, and doing housework wasn't included in that.

I gathered my jacket, chaps and helmet together. Making sure I had the smaller items, like gloves, goggles and earplugs. Once I was sure I had all my gear, I went back out to the bike. It was time to let Aurora warm up, and get ready to go. The kitchen window suddenly filled with faces, as Aurora roared to life. The next thing I knew, the whole family had joined me outside. I guess they figured the kitchen could wait until after I had left.

Some pictures were taken, hugs were given, and I was just about ready to go. But I had one more thing to do. I ran back in the house, I had written each of the kids and Drew a letter. I placed each one on their beds, and grabbed my leathers, as I headed back out the door. I dressed in my gear, as Aurora warmed herself. She had never sounded better. The echoing thunder of the pipes called to me in such a primal way. She was telling me, that this was taking far to long. It's time to go, she boomed at me.

I climbed on her, amongst all the things she was already carrying. I flipped up the kickstand, and pulled in the clutch lever. I gave the throttle a quick crisp twist, and let Aurora's engine roar and return to its usual purr. With my free hand, I blew everyone a kiss good bye. I hit the shifter, dropping Aurora into gear. With the release of the clutch lever, I was on my way, down the driveway, down the road. And with that I discovered, the hardest part of any trip, is leaving. Leaving behind someone you love, leaving the place you call home, and the person you once thought you were