|
Lessons from Life's Edge
Certain words are so familiar and commonplace that it sometimes - for me, at least - warrants a second look. Such was the case when Jara kindly invited me to contribute a piece to Luminare’s “Edges” newsletter series. I was given free rein to write about the topic. A slew of ideas emerged, of course, but I couldn’t settle on one theme, so I went back to the definition of the word. The Oxford dictionary defines an edge as “the outside limit of an object, area, or surface; a place or part farthest away from the center of something.”
Last spring, for two months in early 2020, I lived at life’s edge. If we were to measure the covid-19 pandemic in the span of a day, I became sick in the early wee morning hours. I started feeling unwell around March 11th and by the time I entered the ICU on March 17th, covid-19 pneumonia had set up camp in my lungs and infiltrated my blood stream. My oxygen had descended to dangerously low levels. Though I have no memory of the decision making or the procedures that followed, the medical team decided to put me on a ventilator to help my breathing. Because I would end up being on a ventilator for a long period of time - a tracheostomy was performed; this means they cut open my neck and made an incision through my windpipe to insert a tube connected to a ventilator to help me breathe. I hemorrhaged so severely when the tracheostomy was performed that my body went into shock, and my heart stopped. They induced a coma so that I could remain calm and let the ventilator do its work.
For the next 40 days, I existed at life’s edge, and I write “existed” because I was in a comatose state for that entire time. What kept me company at the edge were my dreams. In my dreams, I was in Paris and Toronto and on Family Feud. Some of my dreams were muted and gray but there were others that were vibrant - there was action, movement, rhythm. It may have been that these dreams weren’t dreams at all - but a delirium I experienced as they lowered my sedation and gently woke me up from my coma. I do know though that in every “dream” I had I was trying to get out of something - leave a room, pass a test, exit a plane. In every dream, I was trying to get home - to my family - to the center of my life.
I finally made my way back to the center of my life - to my family - on May 16th, exactly two months after I went into the ICU. Since returning from life’s edge, there is much I have reaffirmed, rediscovered, been reminded of and learned anew as I have healed, recovered, and grown:
It was reaffirmed for me that family and community are, at the end of the day, the reason for everything.
I rediscovered that it really is the small things that matter - a squeeze of the hand, a hug, deep belly laughs, laying your head on a loved one’s shoulder.
I was reminded to ask for help, and that I don’t have to go it alone.
And I learned that grief is, in fact, love persevering.
Marissa Tirona
President, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees
LinkedIn | Twitter
|
|
|
|
Marissa Tirona
President, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees
Marissa Tirona (she/her/hers) has more than 15 years of senior leadership experience at social justice and philanthropic institutions. Since November 2020, she is the President of Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees. As President, Marissa leads the organization’s efforts to galvanize philanthropy to build a society in which everyone thrives, no matter where they were born. Previously, she was a program officer at the Ford Foundation with the Building Institutions and Networks (BUILD) initiative, Ford’s flagship program designed to strengthen organizations and networks core to the global social justice infrastructure. Before joining Ford in 2017, Marissa led the Blue Shield of California Foundation’s programmatic, policy, and grantmaking efforts to address, prevent, and ultimately end domestic violence and promote health equity throughout the state. Prior to that, she was senior project director at CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, where she designed and led comprehensive, multiyear leadership initiatives that developed network capacity, facilitated movement-level work, and centered communities of color.
Marissa currently serves on the boards of Change Elemental and Sadie Nash Leadership Project. Based in Brooklyn with her family since 2017, Marissa is always from the Town (Oakland).
|
|
|
Luminare Group is a black woman-owned firm.
Our multifaceted, multidisciplinary team brings together a distinctive set of diverse experiences, passions and talents.
We provide strategic planning, evaluation, capacity building and resources for leaders and organizations addressing disparity and structural barriers to equity.
To learn more, visit us at http://theluminaregroup.com
|
|
|
|
Share Be Lumin-Us with your community
|
|
Our mailing address is:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
