As my mom kissed me on the forehead, I asked her to leave the closet light on. As she closed the bedroom door I could see inside the room from the closet light. As my eyes closed shut the last thing, I remembered was the light in the room.
Over the next few years that was the nightly routine until that hot summer day when I ran to jump in the pool and closed my eyes. I closed my eyes to protect them from the chlorine, but I was too young to understand I needed them open to guide me away from the deep end of the pool. As my body embraced the cool water my feet waited for the arrival of the concrete floor of the shallow end of the pool, but it never came. My brain told my eyes to open and with that the chlorine irritated my eyes. I struggled to reach the top of the water, but I kept sinking. I could see the bright sun and man in front of me. I reached for the man, but he was too far away. I could see my blond hair floating in the water with the sun above. The last thing I remembered was the far above light shining through the water and then waking up on the pool deck.
I stood at the front of the class and introduced myself as the instructor who would be training them in Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM). As the students introduced themselves, one was blind. She had lost her eyesight in adulthood. She was a clinician (mental health professional) being trained in CISM to work with firefighters. Her first and last name were a mouth full for this simple man to say, so I told her I would just call her The Queen Bat. As the words rolled from my lips she smiled. After the three days of training, I told The Queen Bat she needed to go into a fire department training burn house and feel the heat. What most do not realize is firefighters spend a good portion of their time in a fire with limited to no eyesight. They intentionally direct their body and mind into a situation where one of the senses is removed and the rest of the senses are suppressed from the protective gear they wear. Our senses are what guide us and protect us from harm. Our brain logs how the senses experienced the situation, and then our memory stores the outcome to protect us in the future.
I removed my hard hat and respirator to talk to the firefighter who was at the fire scene I was investigating. He told me of the room he entered inside the burning building. He said, “I could not see and got turned around in the room. I could feel the heat and thought my legs were on fire. In the darkness I ran my fingers down the wall trying to find the door, but I could not find it. I thought about my wife and kids and how I would never see them again. Then my hands found the door. They called for us to evacuate the building, so I went to one side of the building to try and suppress the fire. The next thing I remembered is being pulled from the brick rubble with two dead fire fighters next to me”.
I climbed down from my deer stand and it was dark. I follow the trail that I have used for years. As my eyes adjust, the darkness sets in. I look up and can see through the tops of the pine trees the moon that has guided mankind for a long time. I think back to the day I lacked good judgment not far from here, and the cool waters from the creek swallowed my body. I pulled myself up on the bank and left the darkness behind. I think of that day on a river far from here where the dark waters once again tried to swallow me but this time it tried to also swallow our youngest son too. When we both emerged from the depths of the river, I fought to save us both. I think about that woman who taught me how to swim. I think about how hard she had to convince a little boy the darkness would not take him again. I think about that magical ping pong ball she gave me and as long as it was in my swimming suit, I would stay afloat. I think about that Marine who years later taught that same boy how to swim with his clothes on.
As I follow the trail, I think about The Queen Bat. She took my advice and went into a fire department training burn house. For her the darkness had been setting in for years but this time the darkness was accompanied by her other senses being suppressed. Years later I took her on a plane ride to do some more training. It was the first plane ride since her darkness set in. As we walked through the airport, she held my arm and commented, “I can tell by your arm you are very relaxed guiding me.” I said, “The worst that can happen is you will fall down.” The Queen Bat smiled.
For years the firefighter who was swallowed by the bricks sought treatment so he could see the light of his trauma. Unfortunately, those that tried to help him focused on the brick wall that tried to kill him, not the room where the darkness set in. The firefighter tried various methods to suppress his senses to calm the trauma but it’s hard to make a positive from a negative. He finally found a program that helped him get to the light. The gear he once wore to protect himself is no longer required. His days are now filled with his eyes and his body feeling everything.
I recently wrote my definition of trauma in another blog. “Trauma is being in the deep end of the swimming pool, and you cannot swim. A heavy weight is attached to your leg, you try to reach the top of the water, but you keep sinking. The deeper you sink the bright sun becomes less and as you reach out to those swimming by, they never know you are there. Then time stands still, and the darkness comes”. A friend commented on that definition as being the best definition of trauma she had ever heard. I replied without thinking, “I should know I drowned as a kid”. When I wrote the definition, I never put together my drowning and my accurate detailed definition of trauma. To me a simple man I was just a boy closing his eyes to protect them and made a mistake. I see now the darkness I feared in that bedroom found its way to me in that swimming pool and many more times in life.
It’s been years since that hot summer day in that swimming pool but when I close my eyes, I can feel the darkness set in. Over the years I’ve embraced the darkness, I have seen the light of day on the darkest nights. I’ve blindfolded myself climbing my way to heaven to teach myself to trust one sense when another goes away. On one night just like The Queen Bat I followed firefighters into a training burn house, so I could feel the heat without seeing it. Somehow when darkness sets in now, I’m not scared anymore.
Our senses were a gift from God to guide us on this pathway called life. I see our society changing with encouragement to be more expressive, to be more open, and to feel more. But what confuses me is how we can feel more when we routinely suppress our senses. We want to live and function in the perfect temperature. We want to mask the natural odors of the earth. We want to manicure and perfect the landscape so it’s more pleasing to the eyes. We want to flood our ears with our preferred noise or music. We want to make most things have a preferred flavor. We want to alter and adjust our emotions and thoughts, so will can live in a mental state of total comfort.
Recently The Queen Bat held a newborn baby from a woman she has helped for years. From the picture you would never know that darkness has forever set in on The Queen Bat. Our eyes are a portal to receive the somewhat complex information and obstacles of life. I doubt our eyes were ever intended to be the portal to darkness. A man named Paul once wrote, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” In the darkest of nights, I can feel the earth under my feet. I can feel hope. I can smell the fresh earth around me and its hope. I can hear the distant owl and that occasional tree frog sing of hope. I can feel the rain drops run across my face and taste the salt from a hard day’s work across my lips. I can taste hope. To some the darkness of night, the darkness of life, the darkness of the uncertain pathway is crippling. That same man named Paul also wrote, “We walk by faith and not by sight.” To some of us who have risen from the bricks, or the water, or holding a newborn baby, the darkness contains many things and is bright and full of hope.
The sun is not up yet. I cannot see the stars from the cloud cover above. My shirt is soaked in sweat, and my legs are tired from yesterday. I stand here and take a deep breath and feel my lungs expand. There is not a soul in sight or a light to tell me I’m near mankind. I cannot see two feet in front of me, but I feel the earth around me. I think of that magical ping pong ball and how that lady got a little boy to have faith in the light above. There are days in all our lives when people seem out of reach. There are days when the light above also seems so far away. To me a simple man standing here surrounded by darkness, faith and hope also surround me, but it’s love that makes me see when the darkness sets in. – Josey
International Critical Incident Stress Foundation
United States Marine Corps – Training Command
For more of Josey’s stories with Dr Jeffrey Mitchell, got to https://crucialmoments.org/
To read more of Josey’s blog stories, https://theroadmapcompany.com/blog/
FInd us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheRoadmapCompany/
