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Bezig met laden... To Love What Is: A Marriage Transformeddoor Alix Kates Shulman
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A personal story of crisis, commitment, and hope from the best-selling author of Memoirs of An Ex-Prom Queen One day it happens, the dreaded thing that will change your life forever, the more dreadful because, though you’ve half expected it, you don’t know what form it will take or when it will come, and whether or not you will rise to the challenge. For Alix Kates Shulman, it happened on July 22, 2004, at two a.m. on a coastal Maine island in a remote seaside cabin with no electricity, running water, or road to reach it—where the very isolation that makes it a perfect artist’s retreat renders it as risky as life itself. She woke to find that her beloved seventy-five-year-old husband had fallen the nine feet from their sleeping loft and was lying on the floor below, naked and deathly still. Though Scott would survive, he suffered an injury that left him seriously brain impaired. He was the same—but not the same. Each of us has imagined with dread the occurrence of just such an event outside our control that will permanently alter the course of our lives. In this elegant memoir, Shulman describes life on the other side: the ongoing anxieties and risks—and surprising rewards—she experiences as she reorganizes her world and her priorities to care for her husband and discovers that what might have seemed a grim life sentence to some has evolved into something unexpectedly rich. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Both Alix and Scott and went to the same high school although he was three years ahead of her. They were in the same biology class one semester and, though she thought of him often, they didn’t meet again until years later when they attended the same college. After dating for awhile, they went their separate ways. Thirty four years later, they met again. This time they married and had a wonderful marriage.
In TO LOVE WHAT IS, seventy-five-year-old Scott fell nine feet from their sleeping loft and sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI). After the accident, like many people, much of what Shulman heard from the doctors was colored by what she wanted to hear, to give her hope. The doctor’s warning that anything could happen with his recovery and it might take a long time, didn’t penetrate. She was sure he would have a complete recovery and be the same person he was before the fall. That didn’t happen. Her interpretation of what she was seeing and hearing from him often differed from what his therapists saw and heard. They were looking for different things.
Even after accepting his impairment as permanent, she still hoped life would return to normal and forget that their lives were are the new normal.” They had to work with what they had and learn how to cope with their new reality.“The worse things go for him, the greater my resolve to make them better.” .
He became more childlike, wanting constant attention and becoming frustrated and angry when he couldn’t do or get what he wanted. Unlike a child, however, his situation would not improve over time. In fact, it would diminish. Like many people with brain injuries or illnesses, he was unaware of the changes and lived contentedly in the present moment most of the time particularly when he had constant companionship. “He rejects unhappiness and counterproductive. To both of us, action and accommodation are always preferable to passivity or despair, which can only prolong the pain. If all else fails, we’ll use our tragedy for making art.”
Interspersed with the story of how life changed for both Alix and Scott is the story of their lives over the year. It is the memories of these happier times that enable Alix to put their current situation in perspective and find help and comfort in the past.
TO LOVE WHAT IS is a love story as well as a guide to facing and dealing with a traumatic, life-changing event. Well-written and honest, Shulman tells how reality can be flexible depending on perception and how a positive attitude and wonderful memories can make the journey a bit easier. ( )