Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving 2007 at our house. Imagine what THAT was like! The first thing I did this morning was kiss Taylor while he slept.

It seems for many people, Thanksgiving is just the beginning of a 4 day weekend, a day to get ready to start shopping or a reason to visit with family and friends. For most, there probably isn’t much more time spent giving thanks on Thanksgiving than there is honoring Vets’ on Veterans Day or Presidents on Presidents Day. We were as guilty as most other people. Outside of the Blessing, that pretty much ended discussions of "thanks".

This year, Lauren suggested putting everyone’s name in a hat, picking a name and telling everyone why we are thankful for that person. My mother and sister came down for lunch, and we had our neighbor over.

I knew whoever drew Taylor's name would have it made. It was me! There wasn’t really much to say. It’s just one of those obvious things. I probably could have done my part by just pointing at him. But, I did give thanks that God saved him, that he's with us, and that he has healed as well as he has.

It was only 6 or so months ago that we wondered about everything – would he walk again, would he be OK mentally, would he be able to go back to school? We lived with the unknown for a long time. We now know that he has recovered so well and so fast that there is little these days he can’t do. He is still weak on his right side, and his double vision still causes some problems and he still get tired more quickly than he did before. But, he’s adjusted to the hearing loss, never really talks about the facial paralysis, and never gets bummed out having to depend on everyone to get him around. So, to be able to do almost everything with him that we could before the accident is REAL cause to give Thanks.

So, as you would expect, our family is thankful for Taylor’s recovery. We’re thankful that he is the same old Taylor, and life with him from here forward will only be slightly different than if the accident had never happened. But, we’re all adjusting to it and recognize that is sure beats the alternative.

"I did OK on the skateboard"

9:30pm

That is NOT what I expected to hear anytime soon.

Yesterday, Taylor called me and said "I know what I want for Christmas - a beach cruiser bike so I can ride to friends houses and not be dependent on everyone to take me places".

I told him that I was certain he wasn't ready to try riding a bicycle yet, but that maybe after the first of the year when he became a little more stable he may be able to. And then, I told him, you could only test it out if some of your friends ran beside you, but it's probably just not a good idea to try that any time soon.

As we talked, I could hear the distinctive sound of the skateboard park in the background. I've heard it a million times. Before he could drive, I'd often take him and his friends to Skatepark of Tampa, where they'd skate until they were exhausted. Taylor became pretty good at it, even getting photographed for a Ledger note about the skateboard park in Bartow opening years ago.


Then, he hit me with it - "I did OK on the skateboard". After I cleaned my pants out, I told him that I hoped he was kidding, and if he wasn't , he better not even think about doing that again. He was silent, so I'm thinking he did a little personal balancing test. He and I will talk about it a little more in depth the next time I get a private audience with him!

Taylor has been VERY patient about his progress. He has not complained a bit about not being able to do everything he could before. But, I guess the curiosity of "can I still do this?" momentarily overwhelmed his better judgment.

Taylor in more agile days

Back to school!

7:30am

We had another major milestone yesterday - Taylor signed up for classes at the PCC/USF campus in Lakeland starting in January. He's taking Sociology, English Lit and College Success. We've never seen him as excited about going to school as he is right now. Before the accident, school was something he did to fill some down time. He was always able to just show up in class and do well. Now, he's actually motivated to get back to class and to focus on getting on track. Just this morning, while Lauren was getting ready for school at 6:30am, he woke up and started talking about school. He said he planned to go to bed at 9pm each night so he'd be rested for school. That won't happen, but it sounds good.

Just like our trip to the mountains last month, his registering for classes makes us again think about how far from reality his going back to school seemed 6 months ago.

Taylor's walking seems to have really improved in the past 2 weeks. He seems more stable than he has been, and doesn't walk with a "slice" like he has in the past sometimes. And, he says he feels that his walking has become stronger. A week or so ago, he said he had tried "jogging", but forgot to tell his friends he was going to give it a whirl. He said they yelled out "WHAT in the **** are you DOING?" and he told them he was trying to jog. He said it actually went pretty well, but don't expect to see him enter any footraces anytime soon.