I sat in my one bedroom apartment, drunk, alone and dejected. One year had passed since I was so very luckily saved and yet my mind was full of anger and sadness. It had been the worst year of my life. Crutches for nine months, multiple surgeries, occupational therapy to teach me how to add and subtract again, over 600 hours of physical therapy, ran every meaningful relationship out of my life, and had ended up so far from where I had started: alone. My life had lost any sense of worth. The one thing I loved more than anything in the world was leading soldiers. It had been snatched from me by a nameless faceless enemy, who laid a trap for me to walk into. They had stolen my passion, they had stolen my will to live. Many irrational a thought goes through a grown man's head at this point and I grabbed the chain around my neck harder than I ever had. Around my neck was a chain that my Mother had given me before I deployed to Afghanistan. On the chain were two pendants and I pulled the chain out from beneath my shirt to look at them. The first of Saint Michael stared at me, with his sword in hand destroying the beast, I moved to the next pendant. Two hands clasped in prayer, I flipped it over and read the prayer out loud that my mother had encouraged me to live by:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Amen
I walked into the classroom and looked around the stadium seating display. One hundred seats lay in front of me and I searched through the name tapes to find mine: Kyle Snook. I located it: Middle 3rd, center seat, 4 rows up. I walked up the side aisle, attempting not to make eye contact with anyone as my social anxiety kicked in. I made my way to my seat, and sat down. I was exhausted, my social anxiety drains my body and I again attempted to sit as low as I could in my chair not wanting to set it off again. As I sat there I thought about my year anniversary, how worthless I was, how I didn't belong to be here, how no one would understand where I had come from. One person introduced themselves, I said hello and smiled. Then another, then another, then another.
I lost a part of myself two years ago, a large part of myself. I have lost even more in the two years that have followed. I have sacrificed morality, ethics and my core values because of frustration, anger and sadness with my situation. I have pushed the ones who love me the most to frustration and eventual departure. I reflect on this everyday and it upsets me. It deeply upsets me. One of the biggest things I lost was the sense of being part of something bigger than myself. Being part of a larger organization or family.
I watched as Brian walked up to the front of the classroom. Section F sat there in anticipation to find out two things: Why do we have a glass of non alcoholic wine in front of us? Why is Brian holding us after class? I glanced around the room at my peers, my friends, and I looked back to Brian as he began. At first there was some noise, papers ruffling and cell phones clicking, as Brian gave the backdrop of military traditions and why it was important for the military folks in the room to pass those on to our sectionmates. "Two years ago today our sectionmate Kyle, was leading a patrol in Afghanistan," he began as the room fell motionless and silent. As he walked through the storyline that inevitably ended with the explosion that nearly took my life, my eyes began to water. I had been tearing up all through Lead and FRC and wiping my eyes to hide it from my classmates. I flashed back to four hours earlier. My alarm goes off and I roll over. I lay there in bed and I begin to brake down. I am unable to control the emotion of knowing that two years ago to this day my life was saved and not taken. I grabbed my computer and logged into the HBS homepage. I clicked on the link titled "Absence Notification". I laid there in bed contemplating if I was actually going to school today. My eyes were welling, my face stained, and my emotions running. I thought there was no way I was going to go. And then I felt it, my sense of family, a sense of something other than me going on that I had lost two years prior. How selfish of me to stay at home when others were working hard in school? And why because I got to live?
As Brian finished and the room began to empty, countless numbers of sectionmates came up to me somberly, some crying and gave me a hug. The resounding message was, "Thank you, im glad your here." And it occurred to me that since this event happened two years ago I had fought it. Looked at it like a curse, the worst two years of my life. I had never sat back and really looked at the other side of it. I left the room and went to my Dad's office on campus. As I walked up to my Dad, I began crying again, I put my arms around my Dad and said, "Im really glad im here."
No comments:
Post a Comment