Every morning when we open our eyes we are given a choice, a choice to how we are going to make it through our day. We can choose to be positive, negative, or just plain impartial. As we go through our days, months and years in our lifetime we sometimes have the misfortune of encountering some cruel and unfair obstacles to overcome. With these obstacles and misfortunes we have the choice to how we will approach, handle and make it through them. A person’s positive attitude and outlook on life can make almost any negative experience into a positive one.
When a person chooses to have a positive attitude, they are able to make the best of any situation, and I am a firm believer of this. Six years ago this Sept. my family was dealt one of these cruel and unfair obstacles. My Husband Luke, my 4 month old daughter Hailey and I left our small little starter home in Cambridge, MN. We were bound to go and get diapers on a Thursday evening around seven thirty. As we all piled into the car and headed for our short trip to Target it was only a block away from our home that we encountered our first intersection and at this intersection was the defying moment that a positive attitude would have to arise to overcome our cruel fate. Our fate was a car full of young adults and driven by a young man on meth and marijuana and in his impaired state he ran a stop sign at forty miles per hour and t-bone the passenger side our car. In a blink of an eye our lives were forever changed and the positive attitude would slowly start to rise and find a voice, amongst the confusion, damage, and agony of the accident.
A positive attitude may not always come to light right away. This attitude may need time to find a voice, time to be influenced by others or time to overcome the negative one that is so easy to speak up. I was always a pretty positive person, I looked to find the good in people and in situations, but when my family was dealt this misfortune I started questioning everything. I questioned what I did wrong, why I was chosen to be broken, questioning my faith in God. The first fourteen days after the car accident were a blur, I spent them in a medically induced coma, and my husband spent the first fifteen in a coma from his brain injury, and as for our daughter she was perfect and spent those first two weeks with her great grandparents frequenting the ICU to see her parents, so I’m told. As I started to come to and learn the fate of my injuries, the biggest of which was that my left leg was paralyzed, the negativity was so easily there to speak. I made numerous comments on how I hated the world and the people who did this to us, why did I survive and what was the purpose. The anger, hurt, and disappointment flooded to the surface very fast. It was there in the ICU, where I encountered the very first positive comment about this life altering accident and it was spoke from my mother, “Alisha, I can deal and live with you not having a leg that works, and the nerve injuries, but I couldn’t deal with you not being here at all, I still have you and that is what’s important”. From this moment on my positive attitude had been born, and like a child I would have to raise and nurture it.
The next months were filled with many strides working towards becoming a Mom, Wife, and independent again, and in these months there were great strides and setbacks. A lot of positive reinforcement by family, friends and the smile of my daughter are what filled those days. Occasionally there was the bad day where I didn’t even want to function or try, and from my family I was only granted one of those days where they would listen to me complain and whine about everything that had happened to my family. They would listen that one day to me feeling sorry for myself and after that, I needed to move on. And so there I would start. I would start simply writing down all the pros of the car accident, what I would gain from it, hard to imagine gaining something positive from something so horrible but it happened. I thought of the gift that my daughter was perfectly fine, no injuries at all, which is no small feat being her mother and father had to be life linked down to the cities, and spent months in the hospital. The thought of now I get to be a stay at home mother, because I can no longer return to my job. With finding these positives, came the strength to move on, and accept my new life. When someone looks at me and asks what happened, the response I get is usually pity or sadness, you can just see it on their face. My response to them is the same every time “I’m blessed that only one of my legs is paralyzed, I have the option to walk with assistance, my husband is still hear and able to go back to being an electrician, and my daughter well she’s perfect spared from any injuries, my husband and I weren’t supposed to survive this accident so I think we’re doing well”
When my positive attitude had come and invaded my new life, I found it easier to do many things, and one of the biggest was forgiveness. My positive attitude helped me last winter meet the mother of the man who caused this horrible accident in person, not in a courtroom, but to speak one on one. The feelings and emotions that came out of this meeting we’re nothing less than amazing! I accepted her apology, and she was amazed at me offering my forgiveness, I watched his mother in disbelief that I was offering it. There were tears and hugs, and the feeling after leaving, having that weight lifted, felt great. I had come full circle. I believe that my attitude to always look for the good in people is what helped me to do so. My positive attitude didn’t only give me the strength to move on in my life, and put this accident behind me, but it gave the gift to one person who was solely responsible for this whole ordeal to move on also. Without a positive outlook on life, this wouldn’t have been possible.
With the presence of my positive outlook on life, it has made many things possible. It’s helped me never let this accident define me, and allows me to be the same Alisha as I was before with the same goals in life. I continue to do the things that I’ve always wanted, although it may be a bit harder to accomplish these things, I still do. One of the most precious is that we had our second child last year; we were told the road would be hard with all the injuries, but we didn’t let this stop us. And on Aug. 4th 2009 we welcomed Noah Thomas into this world, perfect and healthy. With everything that we endured during this pregnancy, the tiredness, pain and complications, they were all overlooked with my positive attitude, because I reminded myself every day that in the end we’d have our beautiful baby boy. Noah is nothing less than the miracle of life.
I believe that a person’s positive attitude can help them make it through almost anything. I have experienced this first hand. If I didn’t take on a positive attitude I would have slowly died inside, lost in everything that was changed for the worst. I probably would have let my marriage, family, and self-respect all fail with no ambition to look towards the future. With a positive outlook I was able to move forward, not stuck in the past and was able to become a great person who does wonders at motivating other people. I still dream and reach for those dreams; I know that they are within reach. Life is unpredictable and you can never be sure at what you’re going to be challenged with, but as long as you approach it with an open mind, and the attitude that you can prevail over anything, you’ll be okay. When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.
Beautifully written and I totally agree that a positive attitude makes a huge difference!
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