Trauma at the Board

PTSD is not remembering, it is reliving.

The mind takes one back to the event that caused the trauma.

The trigger time warps the person out of the present and back to the past without warning.

Instantly catapulted back to the painful event that caused the damage.

 

I was lecturing to an Anatomy and Physiology class at the local community college.

The subject was the cornea of the eyeball. I was describing its delicate nerve endings.

That is when I heard the scream.

I froze.

The scream belonged to a younger Rose.

 

Years before Rose had seized in the corner of the garden while planting flowers.

She fell face-first into the dirt with her eyes and mouth wide open.

Soil filled her mouth and eyes.

I tried to remove the dirt from her mouth. But what does one do with a dirty eyeball?

A scream erupted from Rose’s dirt-filled mouth.

A haunting, primal vocalization of deep pain that brings chills to the listener.

The sound of suffering and shock that a mother never wants to hear from her child.

Rose was rushed to an eye specialist for an eyewash and a liquid bandage on her eye.

 

As I stood at the board in front of a class full of students,

I heard this horrible scream again.

I stood silently with tears streaming down my face,  crying about the cornea.

There was a long and awkward pause as I pulled myself back together.

My precious, puzzled students patiently waited.

 

I could have continued my lecture on the cornea of the eye,

but there was something more important to teach these future nurses.

They needed to know about trauma and epilepsy.

So a story was shared about Rose and me and PTSD.

 

Mama