They say that a journey of a thousand steps always begins with just one step. David O'Brien didn't know how true this was until he was hit in the back of the neck one night with a baseball bat. Yes, you read that right. David was walking home from his job as a waiter at the local Italian restaurant when a masked man stepped up behind him. That's the last thing he remembered: the sound of the mugger's footsteps on the pavement. Some would assume that this is when David's journey ended, but it had actually only just begun.
He was in and out of consciousness for three weeks. He would open his eyes, see his wife or a nurse hovering over him, become overwhelmed by excruciating pain running up and down his back and then fall right back into unconsciousness. While in this deep oblivion, he would find himself shouting out for his wife, for his parents, for anyone, but no one seemed to hear him. If they did hear him, they didn't care. The rest of his unconscious state was consumed by terrible nightmares filled with masked men chasing him and beating him until he could hardly breathe. He seriously felt like he was losing his mind. Just when he was on the brink of insanity, he woke up.
Blinking his eyes, David looked around the hospital room. Flowers graced the counter tops and get well cards were practically piled on top of each other. A banner hung across the wall in front of him that said, "Get well soon, David!" The rainbow of colors made him feel dizzy, so he closed his eyes for a moment and immediately noticed the feeling of numbness that consumed his ravaged body. He felt completely disconnected from his body, his heart, his soul and his mind. He tried to formulate throughts, but they resembled mush at best. He wanted to cry out, but his tongue felt numb. Breathing heavily, he tried to move but felt paralyzed from the neck down. "What the hell is going on?!" Finally a sentence formed in his detached mind. Suddenly, he remembered: the footsteps and the sickening crack of the baseball bat. "Oh God..." he thought, wishing with all his might that he would die. He had never felt so completely and utterly alone. Even when his wife walked in a few minutes later and gave him a gentle hug and kiss he still only felt disconnected and numb. Taking his hand in hers, Maggie looked down at her husband through blurred vision and said, "Welcome back, my love." Tears of joy cascaded down her pretty face as tears of complete and total desolation welled up somewhere inside him and stayed there for he couldn't connect with them. He wanted to tell her to put him out of his misery, but all he could do was stare.
As if things couldn't get any worse, he learned within the next day or so from his doctor that he has very little hope of regaining the use of his legs and it would take several months of physical therapy just to be able to use his back, chest and arms. "You're lucky," the doctor said, "if that bat had hit you just a half centimeter more to the right then you'd be dead right now." Maggie wept more tears of joy at hearing this whereas David found that to be the unluckiest circumstance of his wretched life.
Time passed. David drew more and more inside of himself as the medical staff did their best to help him function. He struggled through the arm exercises, grimacing in blinding pain as his muscles screamed in protest. Eventually, he refused to do any more exercises. They tried to reason with him, but he only stared blankly at the wall. His wife stayed by his side every day, telling him how much she loved him, how much he still had to look forward to in his life and how there isn't a moment that passes that she doesn't thank God for allowing him to live. He had now regained use of his tongue so he asked, "How can you be so damn happy for me?? I'm practially dead, Maggie, for cryin' out loud!! What good is living if I'm trapped inside this worthless body?" He scowled at her, wanting her to turn around and leave and never come back. Maggie sat for several moments gazing at her beautiful husband, feeling her love for him well up inside of her.
"David Kenneth O'Brien, I am shocked at you."
"What do you mean?"
"I have never known you to be such a coward."
"WHAT?? How can you say that? I am not afraid!!"
"Like hell you aren't! All you do is sit here, feeling sorry for yourself. You've given up on your exercises, you've given up on me, you've given up on your life. Why are you so afraid, David?"
The last question seemed to echo in his ears as he stared defiantly into his wife's eyes. "What life?" he asked, but as soon as the words came out of his mouth he knew exactly what she was getting at and he didn't like it one bit. He asked her to leave and she did, reluctantly. No sooner than she stepped out in the hallway did the sound of fierce sobs ring out of a man who had finally hit rock bottom. His wife came running back in and instinctively threw her arms around him. He wanted to shove her away, but of course he couldn't. His aching, angry sobs were the only force he had to use against her, but his only made her hold him tighter. The anger came in waves: he wanted to scream at the Universe for betraying him, for abandoning him, he wanted to yell at his wife for being so loving and for making him look at himself, and he simply wanted to scream at nothing, at the void he felt trapped in. All he did, though, was yell with all his might. His tortured soul cried out in misery, filling his entire existence with its sad song. He became lost in the emotional intensity, overpowered by a force he could not name. Slowly, the sobbing decreased, the yells became fainter and the feeling of powerlessness dissipated. He felt the comfort of his wife's arms for the first time. He nestled his head against her warm chest. They stayed like that for what felt like eons. When she finally pulled away, he slowly looked up into her eyes and was immediately riveted by the radiant light emanating from them. This light woke up his own inner light, what was once like a distant lighthouse barely penetrating through the dense fog. Now it glowed brighter and brighter until it reached his sore heart. Tears of joy streamed down both of their faces as they kissed gently, infusing each other with even more light.
That was David O'Brien's first step along a very lengthy journey. It was months before he could use his arms, several more months before he could move his torso. He didn't stop there, oh no. It took a couple of years before he could twitch his right foot, but that somehow sparked a fire within his bottom half. Nope, it was no time at all before David could not only hold his young son, but run after him as well.
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