The "Put Back Together" Team

I remember it so clearly.  It captured my attention immediately.  The newspaper, normally reserved for Mom and Dad to read first, had the most captivating picture right there on the front page.  That is what sells after all, right?

Captivating pictures?  Especially pictures. 

Not stories.  Not words.  People have to take the time to read words, but to glance at a picture and be so entranced, that sells papers.

I was maybe 10 at the time.  I don't remember exactly, but we still lived in the Sweet Gum house.  We called it that because we had a sweet gum tree in the yard and it was the name of the street.  All this was meaningless to me; after all, wasn't gum supposed to be sweet?

The man in the photo was in a hospital bed and had been in a horrible motorcycle accident.  Large chunks of skin ripped from his body.  Bloody.  Broken bones.  Bad.  Really bad.

I knew instantly I wanted to be part of it.  Not the badness, you can find that anywhere.  I wanted to be the goodness; one of the doctors or nurses that make it better.  Put back the pieces as best as possible.  Maybe even make them smile a little.  That was what I wanted.  To be part of the "put back together" team.

I tore that article from the paper and quietly took it to my room.  I very carefully trimmed the ragged edges of the newspaper and hung it on my bulletin board.  It was there for many years, sometimes covered over with other things that had been pinned up, but always there.  And then one day it wasn't.  I don't know what happened, maybe it got lost when we moved to a new house, maybe it was taken down because science isn't my strong point, but I never forgot how much I wanted that, to be part of the "put back together" team. 

And now I am. I did it. I triumphed.  Life can be hard.  Lessons can be hard.  Friends die.  People move away.  Cars get wrecked.  Even lives get wrecked.  And that too is part of the put back together team in some sense.

I am elated to say that after seven years of trying, getting frustrated, crying about how it just isn't fair, I did it.

I am one of them. 

I've been accepted. 

I will be an RN and can go as far as I want after that. 

I've earned my CNA. I am a Reiki Master and a Nationally Licensed Massage Therapist.  But nursing, doctoring, that is my thirst.  My true calling where I will figure out how to mold all these lessons and letters and titles together to make someone else's life a little easier as I care for them.

Perseverance. 

I start January 20.  I did it.