I have read the NieNie blog for a few years, following it one week after the plane crash (young mom & husband were in a plane crash, they survived but are badly burned & finding their way back to normalcy as parents & as marrieds). When the accident first happened it gained so much momentum from bloggers throughout the world (they are also Mormon so they have a big network of family/friends as well :-) it was on tons of news specials, talk shows etc. I watched all of the coverage back then when Nie was still in a coma, and I also followed her progress when she came home, had to work her way back into her kids lives & back into feeling human. Back when I first started running after having dude (1.5 yrs after, mind you! I was slow to motivate :-) when Nie was in a coma and I would chant under my breath as I ran "For the love of Nie" which is what they had printed on shirts & signs for fundraising, to me it was a bit of a prayer mantra, to keep going when I didn't want to workout because I knew she would give anything to be where I was.
I will never forget the day I clicked on her blog (which was being run by her sister CJane in her absence) and it was her, it was Nie. She was back online and you could tell from even her short post that she was alive but oh man, was it hard to be living. I think about NieNie almost every time I run or workout. She used to run & teach yoga and be this active, fit mama, and so when I workout I think of her and how she would give anything to be doing what I am doing without the pain of her scars & burns limiting her. Swimming in the pool, running hard & sweating, stretching my limbs and working my body. She is getting back into life but even the smallest things are challenges and so I never take it for granted that I can easily do these physical things and should be doing them, if I can. When I read her blog, she makes life beautiful for her kiddos and husband but in her dark hours & during painful days she posts about how incredibly difficult it is to be this new different person, with a new face and painful body. How she is so happy she is here to be a wife and mother for a while longer but that dang, it's hard.
In the 20/20 special on Nie below, I personally took away two very profound things. First, was how Nie admits to feeling guilty. How could she as a mother get in a plane crash & nearly die & then survive but have life be so hard for her children? I went through that phase after I had my infection following the birth of kiddo, it actually hit me about a year later that I started dealing with these heavy feelings of guilt & responsibility. How could I as a new mom have gone & been stricken with this life-threatening infection, what a careless thing to do! Oh the guilt. Totally unjustified and unreasonable thoughts & feelings but PTSD and depression and all that fun heavy stuff is hardly ever reasonable.
The second thing I took away from the special was how it ended, with Nie saying "I feel beautiful because I have a beautiful life." As a woman, I am sure that she has a deep sadness in her heart that she does not look like the woman she used to & maybe she never will find pure peace with her looks, if it were me I am pretty sure I might be heartsick forever. The statement of feeling beautiful because you realize your life is blessed & beautiful really resonates with me. Sounds all Star Wars-y but it would seem that people who go through a very traumatic experience, be it physical or emotional or mental, always have this small dark side they have to contend with. Guilt or anger at the universe (or someone else), if you don't 'get over it' or move past it...it could very well consume you & ruin what is otherwise a beautiful life. For me, I don't think I am 'over it' yet, my darkside of emotions regarding my own infection trauma that is. I have wiggled around it in order to get in front of it and feel like I define it vs. it defining me. I think it might always be there lingering, the pain & confusion & anger of "why me?" but I can't indulge those feelings too often or IT will ruin my current existence which is currently beautiful and way beyond that event.
In the 20/20 special on Nie below, I personally took away two very profound things. First, was how Nie admits to feeling guilty. How could she as a mother get in a plane crash & nearly die & then survive but have life be so hard for her children? I went through that phase after I had my infection following the birth of kiddo, it actually hit me about a year later that I started dealing with these heavy feelings of guilt & responsibility. How could I as a new mom have gone & been stricken with this life-threatening infection, what a careless thing to do! Oh the guilt. Totally unjustified and unreasonable thoughts & feelings but PTSD and depression and all that fun heavy stuff is hardly ever reasonable.
The second thing I took away from the special was how it ended, with Nie saying "I feel beautiful because I have a beautiful life." As a woman, I am sure that she has a deep sadness in her heart that she does not look like the woman she used to & maybe she never will find pure peace with her looks, if it were me I am pretty sure I might be heartsick forever. The statement of feeling beautiful because you realize your life is blessed & beautiful really resonates with me. Sounds all Star Wars-y but it would seem that people who go through a very traumatic experience, be it physical or emotional or mental, always have this small dark side they have to contend with. Guilt or anger at the universe (or someone else), if you don't 'get over it' or move past it...it could very well consume you & ruin what is otherwise a beautiful life. For me, I don't think I am 'over it' yet, my darkside of emotions regarding my own infection trauma that is. I have wiggled around it in order to get in front of it and feel like I define it vs. it defining me. I think it might always be there lingering, the pain & confusion & anger of "why me?" but I can't indulge those feelings too often or IT will ruin my current existence which is currently beautiful and way beyond that event.
This 20/20 special is great in my opinion but that might just be because I feel like I 'know' them from following their story for years. The intro is really smarmy but the heart of the interview is solid & good, reminds me of why I want to always feel blessed as a woman, wife, mother...it only takes an instant to turn your world upside, an instant.
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