THE CAB RIDE ... are you part of a community of abundance?

29.09.05

Dear Brain Injury Survivor, Associate or Carer around the world,

Are you part of a community of abundance?

I am sending this e-mail broadcast to you all around the world on a group basis

... those who in the BRAIN INJURY SURVIVOR NETWORK ..... a few hundred people. No matter what has happened to you, life is about choices. Life is 10% what happened to you and 90 % what you do about it. You may fit one of these three categories:

• You have had a brain injury in the past
• You work with someone who has brain injury now
• You work with a brain injury group

I see in the fact that you are part of this e-mail network group that you all have a desire to make a difference in life for yourself and others .... especially those with an acquired brain injury (abi) or traumatic brain injury (tbi) as it is called from country to country. The whole topic of how we value other people has a call for us to be part of communities of abundance ..... of giving value other people .... no matter who they are.

I trust you can relate to what I say from hereon. I find that life is a strange thing at times .... sometimes it is hidden and sometimes it is very open. That hiddeness of life is very powerful thing and ultimately it is the inner power of spirituality which motivates us in life .... or the lack of it. We all have a spirituality …… whether we know it not. There are two dimensions of Spirituality, a Horizontal Spirituality on the horizontal plane of life and a Vertical Spirituality ….. Horizontal Spirituality gives us directions on our relationship with the Earth and all other living creatures whereas a Vertical Spirituality gives our relationship with an infinite-personal Creator God. Life didn’t happen by chance (even though some people do believe that absolutely).

Spirituality is implicit (inwardly self evident and undefined). It refers to how an individual lives meaningfully with the ultimate questions of life, his or her response to the deepest truths of the universe as he or she apprehends these. It answers such queries as:

• Who are we as a people?
• What is the meaning of life?
• What values should I live by?
• It is not a rational experience of the mind ….. of just a belief in something but is a dynamic quality of life which interacts with everything you do. It is very practical in way it affects your work, family and social network and the whole of life.

I focus today in this broadcast on the importance of spirituality in restoration from a brain injury plus maintaining an ongoing life for anyone. Can you get back to me about the thoughts in this broadcast?

Regards,

Ken Aitken (B.Sc.)

PS: The photo attached above is one of Harriet and I from our one day visit to Pompeii in our four week holiday to Italy in mid March and April this year.

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THE CAB RIDE .... are you part of a community of abundance?

Twenty years ago, I drove a cab for a living. When I arrived at 2:30 a.m., the building was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window. Under these circumstances, many drivers would just honk once or twice, wait a minute, then drive away. But, I had seen too many impoverished people who depended on taxis as their only means of transportation. Unless a situation smelled of danger, I always went to the door.

This passenger might be someone who needs my assistance, I reasoned to myself. So I walked to the door and knocked. Just a minute", answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 80's stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940s movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware. "Would you carry my bag out to the car?" she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness. "It's nothing", I told her. "I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated". "Oh, you're such a good boy", she said.

When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, then asked, "Could you drive through downtown?" "It's not the shortest way," I answered quickly. "Oh, I don't mind," she said. "I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice". I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. "I don't have any family left," she continued. "The doctor says I don't have very long." I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. "What route would you like me to take?" I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighbourhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl. Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, "I'm tired. Let's go now." We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her. I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair. "How much do I owe you?" she asked, reaching into her purse. "Nothing," I said. "You have to make a living," she answered. "There are other passengers," I responded. Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly. "You gave an old woman a little moment of joy," she said. "Thank you." I squeezed her hand, then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life. I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk.

What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away? On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life.

We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware --- beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

PEOPLE MAY NOT REMEMBER EXACTLY WHAT 'YOU DID, OR WHAT YOU SAID, ~BUT ~ THEY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL. You won't get any big surprise in 10 days if you send it to ten people. But, you might help make the world a little kinder and more compassionate by sending it on.

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REFLECTIONS ON THE STORY ABOVE:

I trust this e-mail broadcast causes you to reflect on your life at the moment .... in terms of now and how you are living it and its final purpose in the end. My purpose today is to share with you a very valuable principle of life: that is to treat other people as you would want to treated .... as a valuable person. You get back in life manifold over, what you give away. When you plant and sow into people's lives, love and care, you get back friendship and positive relationships which multiply far beyond you. Life is like a garden, you only get up what seeds you plant. It is this aspect of creating friendships, which particularly many brain injured people have real ongoing trouble with. This principle of sowing and reaping is true for all aspects of life. As in gardening or farming, you plant seeds for the harvest you wish gain. If you don't plant, you don't reap.

The story above (THE CAB RIDE) is a wonderful story of the value we place on other people. The story illustrates how to treat other people according to their situation .... to go with the flow. Often in a brain injury situation, we can be very inflexible with how people relate us. We may have one way of doing things and we think that approach applies to all people. The opposite position of caring for other people is caring only about ourselves ie. being very self focussed. With that approach we will not get much done in this life.

In Australia where I come from, in the late 1800's, horses and bullock teams were used to haul massive loads to distant places. Australia is only a young country, being settled only after 1788. It was found that one bullock by itself could pull two tonne but two bullocks together could pull twenty three tonnes. So it is with as human beings. Working in with others and valuing their contributions, we have a far greater effect.

When I had my brain injury nearly ten years ago, I finished being in hospital for six months. As you may have read in previous e-mail broadcasts, I had a severe brain injury after falling off a boogi-board in shallow water in the surf at Peregian Beach on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia ..... as simple as that. I was:

· In a coma for four weeks from early December 1995 to early January 1996. I felt like a three year old child in the first week after I woke up from the coma with no control over my actions

· In hospital for six months

· Had to learn to walk, talk, eat solid food all over again

· I had to learn everything over again .... how dress myself etc.

· Get my brain back together from a very scrambled state since December 1995

· I lost a lot of intuitive ability to feel what other people are saying ..... although that is coming back now

Today, I am The Recycled Man. Ten years on, I wouldn't doing a fraction of what am doing now without principle of being synergistically linked to others. This occurred in the following ways:

• Harriet my Wife: First and foremost is my wife Harriet who would drive every day to see me ..... for six months .... even while I was in a four week coma. Harriet drove from Chambers Flat from where we live, to Woolloongabba at the Princess Alexander Hospital. Finding a park outside the hospital and walking in made a journey of at least an hour. That was a journey of 30 kms. each way. After the visit she had the long journey home again. This generous support which I received, was a very important part of my recovery. Many other patients are not so fortunate
• My Family: In 2005 (now ten years on) it has become very close again like a little community in and of itself, all members working for the common good. This is because we all share in a common, a sustainable life of structure, spirituality and social network. I have two children .... Claire and Anthony .... they have been very supportive of me.
• Money from Friends: As soon as my injury occurred in December 1995, friends who I hadn't heard from for years, phoned Harriet from down south even in other states to see how I was. People began to send notes of encouragement to her with cheques of money: A$100.00, $250.00, $500.00 and a $1000.00 in one case
• Support from Friends: I not only had excellent support from my wife but many, many friends throughout my hospitalisation where nearly 100 ++ people came to see me over six months. Some people I hadn't seen for fifteen years. My mind was not very good then but some friends would sit and read for hours beside my bed
• Support from My Local Church: Whilst in hospital I had excellent support through the church Harriet and I are part of then. It is a real community and family based church of 3,500 people at Mt. Gravatt called Garden City Christian Church. It was a very caring group of people ...... many people came to see me from there over six months. Every week one of the twelve pastors from the church came to visit me in hospital and brought a great deal of encouragement to me. Many members still take an active interest in me and my progress. Friends from many other churches would come and visit me as well.

A social network enables you to get out of yourself and your problems being the centre of your attention. A social network then provides a structural part of life to affirm your progress apart from you trying to assess it yourself.

This support of patients, is vital in the whole of life. You rarely get much done by just yourself in life. I call it the synergistic effect. The ability to be able to work in relation to others is a great benefit in life. Healing is not just an independent thing but is a relationship thing. I further say this in another way by saying that human beings are relational, not mechanical.

The Value of Other People: comes as consequence when we have a spirituality of life. There is a seen physical world and an unseen spiritual dimension to life. There are many success principles which come from this unseen dimension of life. One of these is the value we place on other people .... not for we see them as, what they achieve in life but as value placed on them which comes from that spiritual dimension. If you see and only place value on the seen physical world, you will have a pragmatic view on life, only seeing the seen physical world. You end up in a medical sense with a medical model which only sees someone in the here and now. I see this view as very limited in its outlook as it finally denies or ignores a major part and dynamic dimension of life. This spiritual dimension of life is where restoration from brain injury comes from in a full and ongoing sense. I have met some survivors who see they are still suffering from a brain injury 20 - 30 years on. They may be suffering in a real sense but I also see another aspect to this. I would see that it isn't their former brain injury but their very unsustainable way of life that they are having trouble with.

Spirituality leads to a Great Value placed on Other People: Value placed on other people leads to a community or social network. You begin to affirm people for who they are and not they look like, what they do or how they act. Spirituality is like the pond of life. When you toss a stone into a pond of water, the ripples begin to outwards to touch the very outer edges of the pond. Spirituality is like that .... it affects everything in life in a very wholistic way. Spirituality leads to a Social Network and this leads to a need for Structure in life. Like the Body without a backbone, so is life without structure ... Gives order, direction, aims and achievable goals. Structure in life then provides a physical means of delivering the value placed on other people in a social network context.

Regards,

Ken Aitken (B.Sc.)

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