For me, joy is gratefulness.
A little over six years ago, I was pregnant with my second child, lying in a coma with less than a 10% chance of survival and my partner looking on with our two year old, devastated.
Prior to that moment, we were living the dream. I was working my ideal job as a documentary filmmaker in the mountains of Thailand while he designed playgrounds remotely from a home office overlooking the water buffalo grazing. I walked into that office early one morning with a headache and he asked, “can you take tylenol while you’re pregnant?” I responded, “I’m pregnant?” And life changed forever.
I spent the next five months in Bangkok Hospital, in the very early stages of recovery from a brain hemorrhage resulting from a birth defect (this recovery is slow) and the subsequent c-section (this recovery was fast).
Now I am living in Grand Rapids, a place that I’ve left and returned to throughout the years, and putting down roots for the foreseeable future. I continue my filmmaking and I’m volunteering at Arts in Motion to stay engaged with people with disabilities. I continue to be grateful for my unexpected recovery, which hasn’t stopped yet.
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