ReWired To Heal

Part 4B – Finding My Way Back to Life – with little hands and little paws to guide me

Children don’t ask what’s broken before they invite you to play. While I was relearning how to move through the world, my children—one human, one four-legged—moved through it unchanged.

I often wondered how a nine-year-old girl and a one-year-old furbaby would respond to seeing their mother in a fragile, unfamiliar, vulnerable state. A mother who could no longer braid her daughter’s hair with ease, who couldn’t take her fur baby out for long walks, who couldn’t wrestle with the kids on the floor, who couldn’t help her kid with homework or sing the kids to sleep without effort. A mother who suddenly needed more care than she could give.

The answer, I learned, was simple and entirely unremarkable in the way only children can manage. My kids didn’t recoil. They didn’t tiptoe around my fragility. They adjusted and accepted me —without announcement, without fear. My daughter didn’t miss the mother I had been. She made room for the one standing in front of her. She slowed when I slowed, she filled the gaps when I couldn’t, and she carried on with a quiet confidence that said “this is still MY mom.” My dog followed suit in his own way—curling up closer, cuddling with me more than usual, waiting without impatience, content with shorter walks and being the first to give me hugs and kisses when my night terrors and screams hit. Neither of them asked for explanations. Neither treated me like I was broken. They simply stayed, accepting me for who I was, and inviting me—again and again and again—to join them where I could, when I could.

One afternoon, we sat on the floor with coloring books spread between us. My hands trembled as I tried to stay within the lines, the crayons slipping where they never used to. I laughed it off at first, embarrassed, until tears welled up—not out of self-pity, but out of anger at my own inability. That was when my daughter reached over and placed her hand over mine.  “Like this, ma,” she said, gently guiding my grip, steadying the movement without correcting me.

It struck me then how completely the roles had shifted. The child I had once taught to color, to draw, to hold a crayon, was now patiently teaching me—not just how to color again, but how to slow down, how to be gentle with myself. Until that moment, my anger had been loudly directed at the universe, at fate, at the Gods, at whatever force I believed had handed me this setback. But in that quiet exchange, something softened. I realized that perhaps the setback wasn’t the end of the story—it was something that I needed in order to notice, and most importantly accept the people who would help me stand again, in ways I hadn’t imagined.

Later, in the living room, the kids brought out a ball. My daughter rolled it toward me, waiting patiently as I tried—and failed—to kick it back. My dog watched closely, tail wagging, unbothered by the pauses. When I missed, they waited. When I connected, even weakly, they celebrated. No rushing. No frustration. Just a quiet, shared understanding that this was how play worked now.

In those moments, I was no longer the fragile one or the one being cared for. I was simply a part of the game. And somehow, that was enough to make the road ahead feel possible, to remind me that I could keep going.

Of course, it wasn’t always gentle or picture-perfect. There were moments when patience frayed—when my daughter had a meltdown over something small and I didn’t have the emotional or physical reserves to respond the way I wanted to, or the way she needed me to. Moments when my dog tugged hard on the leash, chasing a squirrel without warning, pulling me off balance and reminding me how quickly things could spiral. Those moments scared me. They exposed the limits of my control and the fragility I was still learning to manage.

There were times I came close to retreating—to giving up walks with my pet altogether, to avoiding difficult conversations with my daughter out of fear that I wouldn’t be able to hold space for her emotions if they overflowed. I realized that pulling back felt safer but it wasn’t the life I wanted to model. Such moments were a part of life and avoiding those moments wouldn’t protect either of us and it would only shrink our world. I realized that staying engaged, even imperfectly, mattered more than staying in control.

We paused. We recalibrated. We tried again – together. Recovery, I was learning, wasn’t a smooth return to who I had been—it was learning how to stay present, even when things went sideways.

What I didn’t understand then—but would eventually come to learn—is that this wasn’t the whole village that helped me recover. It was only the beginning. Beyond our small, imperfect rhythms were others who carried me too—family, friends, doctors, therapists, and sometimes even strangers—each in their own way. That story comes next.

This chapter belonged to my children. But the next belongs to the rest of the village.