What would I say to her?

If I could go back in time, and thank her, for getting me here…

What would I say?

What COULD I possibly say, that would be enough?

I’d often wondered.

Four years ago in Philadelphia, I sat on a bed in my hotel room looking at my foot.

It was infected.

The small spot that had been rubbed raw by my “too tight” sandals had gone from a minor abrasion to an open wound in a matter of days.

As a diabetic, I knew it was a cellulitis infection, and I was in need of antibiotics. We were at least a week away from the end of our vacation, and I knew it couldn’t wait.

We had just attended my cousin’s wedding a few days earlier, where I had worn the “unfortunate shoes”. I sat looking at my foot, avoiding the inevitable.

I was so mad at my body.

It felt like it was punishing me.

The diabetes had already forced me to give myself injections every day, and now to add insult injury, a small simple cut was about to turn into an unplanned trip to the emergency room.

We had even asked the hotel for a room on the bottom floor, because I could barely get up a flight of stairs on my own, let alone with all my luggage.

At every turn I felt like my body was at odds with me, like it was on a revolt. It was as if I was waiting for an avalanche to bury me…

Looking back now, I wish I could get in a time machine, and send myself back to that day, and knock on the door of the hotel where that version of myself sat agonizing over her circumstances.

I wish she could meet me now, four years later, and know that it was going to be the last year she would ever feel that way.

I wish she could know then, what I know now, in regards to what she was capable of.

I wish she could see all the photos I have taken in the last four years, and hear about all of the things we have done together, her and I.

I would want her to know that everything we went through was worth it. Even the things we survived to get to our breaking point, were the very things that made us into the woman that we have become.

I would hug her, and thank her for what she was about to do…for us.

I would tell her, that she saved our life.

I want her to know all of it.

And, knowing what I know now, of all of the things that I would want to tell her on that day-

The one I believe to be the most important is this…

Once you finally come to that place where you think you are facing the end of the road-

Stop, and look around you-

Because, that is where you will find the strength that you require, to continue to forge ahead, and begin to pave a new one.