Imagine surviving a horrible accident, a car accident, a train accident, merely an accident in which other people were involved, and you are the only survivor. But your memory got wiped of the incident. News reporters are trying to interview you about what happened and how you feel about surviving, but you look at them and shake your head. You don't know. You don't remember. You don't even remember that you were in an accident. All you have to tell you are the scars to prove the event. The cameras are making you nervous and you clam up. You have nothing to say. What you're thinking is, "All I did was survive. Why do I have to be the face of something I didn't do?"
These were my thoughts when I turned sixteen. My family had been invited to an event celebrating the surgeon who had essentially saved my life and I did not want to go. This event of celebration was good, I thought, and important. The surgeon deserved to be celebrated. But I didn't understand why i needed to be the poster-child for the survival of children born premature. Being a "preemie" and having survived that means that this is beyond my memory. Being a preemie and now being sixteen didn't seem as important to me as it did everyone else in my known (and unknown) world. But i had no choice. I had to go to this celebration. And I had to be celebrated, even when I said I didn't want to be. News interviews were conducted, but I didn't want to do them. I stared at the reporters, not knowing what to say. I forgot answers to simple questions, and I froze. At the big event, they called me up to stand next to that surgeon as evidence of his wonderful work, and me? I just wanted to crawl right back into the womb. As those days went by, I struggled with the thoughts of our fictional survivor above.
All I did was survive.
Why am I getting all of the attention?
Interview the doctors or the nurses or my parents, but don't interview me.
I didn't do anything. They're the ones that did anything. They're the ones that deserve the publicity, the recognition, and the fame.
Why am I the face of something that I didn't do and can't even remember?
This is my parents' story, not mine.
Now, obviously, I have come to terms with all of these thoughts, and I understand more of how this is my story. In my first article, I spoke on that subject quite clearly. But at the time, I didn't understand. At the time, I truly thought that this wasn't my story, that if I couldn't even remember it happening, I didn't deserve to tell it. All I had were my mother's accounts and the surgical scars to prove that any of it had happened. I didn't deserve to tell this story or be the poster child of anyone's successful surgical career. At the time, I was just trying to be a normal kid. And this deviated from that plan. This wasn't normal. This, to me, was celebrating what made me "not normal." And at the time, I really hated that fact.
It has taken me years to understand how important it is to have me standing up there with that surgeon. And it was so very important. In that moment, I was the proof that premature birth doesn't mean a bad outcome. I was the proof that God can use this doctor's hands to work near miracles. I was, and still am, the proof that you don't always know, that the sickest child you have ever seen can survive, that you can't just give up on your child because of imperfections and complications.
Yes, it is my mother's story. Yes, she remembers it better than I can. Yes, talk to the doctors, the nurses, the surgeons. But talking to them means nothing unless you have the proof of their success, the living, breathing evidence.
I am the face of survival, the face of actions that I didn't do. And that's okay. The story is my story, and I know now how important it is for me to tell it.
