Awakenings

Has anyone ever seen the movie "Awakenings" with Robin Williams?  If not, PLEASE see it first, then come back and read this post.  If so, do you remember when his patients first start to move by catching the ball that is thrown at them?  The nurse in the movie says that it seems they are "borrowing the will of the ball", and that's why they are finally moving after years of being catatonic.

That's how I feel right now.  Dan has his branch's Christmas party tonight, and I honestly don't know what to do with myself.  I feel like I've been "borrowing his will" for the last two and a half weeks, and that's what's kept me going: his will and his belief in me.

A woman from work and I were talking last Thursday as we walked to our cars, and I said to her that the most confusing and troubling parts to all of this are all of the unanswered WHYs.  Why was our little baby still alive when so many things were wrong??  Why was her little damaged heart still beating when she didn't even have an actual brain, just a brain stem?  Why was that precious little heart still going when all of her internal organs were on the outside of her tiny body??  Why??  And this is what she said to me:  "Well, Laura, it's because you are stubborn, and I believe it was your sheer will keeping her going."  I had to laugh to myself, because she's probably right.

I guess sometimes that's the only thing that keeps us going: another person's belief that we can.