6 Minutes Wrestling with Life

Zihuatanejo

Amazing Awaits
When you work hard enough,
Want badly enough,
And refuse to say,
"I've had enough."
Amazing Awaits

September 1st, 2009

An avalanche in your head.

That is how a brain injury is described in one of the posts I am reading on the Internet at 2:48 a.m.

I know Jess is in there.

I have seen slight movements. Real movements.

I can't imagine being Jess right now.

I don't want to imagine being Jess right now.

I have to imagine being Jess right now.

An avalanche in my head.

What would I do?

What does she need?

Hope.

I immediately take out my iPhone and go to YouTube and search for videos from the Shawshank Redemption.

I pull up a video of the conversation about hope that Andy Dufrense and Red are having in the prison courtyard.

Andy asks Red, "Where are you going to go when you get out of here?"

Red responds sarcastically, "One day when I have a long white beard and two or three marbles left, maybe they will let me out of here."

Andy, with a dream in his eye, immediately cuts him off and says, "I'll tell you where I would go – Zihuatenejo. It's in Mexico, a little place on the Pacific Ocean, I'd open up a little hotel right on the beach, buy some worthless boat and fix it up like new and take my guests charter fishing."

Red shoots Andy down and says; "I don't think you should be doing this to yourself, Andy. Mexico is way the hell down there, and you're in here and that's just the way it is."

Andy defiantly responds, "I guess it really comes down to one simple choice – get busy living, or get busy dying."

An avalanche in your head.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

It took Andy Dufrense twenty years to chip away at his prison wall and escape from his hell.

Hope is what kept his dream alive.

It is time to start moving the rocks away from Jess's avalanche so she can escape to her Zihuatenejo.

It is now 3:03 a.m.

I approach Jess's bed and I whisper in her ear,

"Jess, I believe you are in there. I am here to get you out. We need to get more people to believe. So what I want you to do is to move something, other than your hands, because they think your hand movement is not voluntary. I need you to concentrate on putting your two big toes together."

"Jess, I want you to imagine you are laying on the beach in the Hamptons right now..."

I sit down and start coaching Jess.

Jess's legs are separated by at least two feet.

"Come on Jess, you can do this..."

"Come on Jess, you can do this..."

"Prove to everyone you are in there."

Over and over again.

When you stare at something for twenty minutes straight sometimes your mind plays tricks on you and makes it look like there is movement, when there really isn't.

I try to play devils advocate and dismiss the slight movement that I think I see to the above phenomenon.

But it is undeniable.

Jess's legs are getting closer and closer together.

"Come on Jess, you can do this!" my voice is crescendoing.

It is now nearly forty minutes since I started coaching Jess to touch her two big toes together.

Her two feet are now about one foot apart.

"Come on Jess, come on Jess, come on Jess."

My coaching is non-stop at this point. My excitement is almost at a feverish pitch and nearly uncontrollable.

I look up from Jess's legs and I see the head nurse approaching.

I am so excited that I am crying at this point. I feel the warmest tear roll down my cheek. It hits my mouth. I can taste the salt.

The head nurse enters the room. I immediately explain to her what has happened and she says to me, "Mr. Passaro, you need to keep it down in here before you wake up the other patients."

"Nurse, my daughter, on command, has moved her feet together in the last forty minutes. Her legs were at least two feet apart, and now, they are only one foot apart. I am a little excited – try to understand," I say.

I beg her to watch for a few minutes. She watches for thirty seconds and says, "I don't see anything, and I need to get back to the desk. Please keep your voice down or I will have to ask you to leave."

Nothing is going to derail me so I play the game and say, "Of course."

Over the next twenty minutes, Jess has cut the distance between her big toes down to about six inches.

Then four inches.

Then two inches.

I can't believe what I am seeing.

Actually I can believe it. I knew she was in there.

Jess is trembling now, trying to get her toes to come together for the last inch. She is battling. It is not enough for her that she moved her legs together almost two feet over the last ninety minutes. It seems as if the last inch is the most important to her.

It has been another forty minutes and her two big toes are within a hair of each other.

"One big push Jess. One big one Jess."

I ask her to give it everything she's got – one big push to get her toes together.

It is the most beautiful site I have ever seen in my life.

Jess's toes jump together.

I hug her.

Zihuatenejo.

Get busy living or get busy dying.