no words said
No Words Said
There are times in life when no words that are said will make anything easier.
I know this from personal experience.
When the doctors told me that I was "really very lucky to have survived," I told them to shove it up their asses because, unlike me, they could feel it. And when Dick told me that things could be worse (I could have been shot higher in the spinal cord), I told him to shove it, too. In fact, the only person I never mouthed off to for saying words like that was Helena, who had lost too much herself to warrant such blatantly self-serving anger.
She had told me that I was lucky I hadn't died because, if I had, it would have been alone. She told me that she was lucky that I hadn't died because, if I had, she would have been alone. She told me that having ghost pains from legs I'd never use again was better than having ghost pains from a mother I'd never see, hear or touch again.
None of the things she said made it easier to forget that I had once walked, but she was right. I told her so, but that didn't make it easier for her, either.
So, for a very long time we struggled together. We told each other platitudes that meant nothing to hear, but everything to say, and we tried daily to believe them. We kept watch over the skyline of our now shared appartment at night, while we avoided sleep for as long as possible in an effort to stave off the nightmares. And eventually, we healed.
But nothing anyone ever said to us, nothing we ever said to ourselves, ever made it easier.
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