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Independence

A Story Of Perseverance

By B.P.HillPublished 3 years ago 10 min read
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Photo Courtesy of Teresa Barker

Jaimie Johnson was running again. Feeling the cool dirt beneath her feet which she found were free of the constraints of shoes and socks. Her favourite feeling in the world. She often wonders why people don’t just run everywhere. For example, when most find themselves forgetting something and then realising it on the way out the door, throw back their head, sigh, wheel around, and grumble about how nothing ever goes right, agonising over the fact that they were now going to be late. Jaimie loves the freedom and the thrill of the run though, the exhilaration and the clarity she feels in her mind when her physical body is doing something it was freely meant to do. Perhaps if this basic human privilege hadn’t been ripped away from her after her accident, maybe she too would take the simple things in life for granted. Now, if she needs something, she needs to think of it before the nurse leaves, or she just goes without whatever it is she needs or has forgotten. Jaime hears her name being called over and over, and she senses the exasperation in the voice. But no, she thinks to herself. Not yet.

The stern voice of Mary, Jaimie's nurse, disturbs Jaimie from her deep slumber. She startles awake, and finds herself ripped from the comforting confines of her dream state, abruptly placed in what most would call a nightmare, especially to a previously active, healthy human like Jaimie. Jaimie is a quadriplegic and Mary is here to take Jaimie through her morning routine. While Jaimie does admire Mary, she very much would prefer to know Mary as simply a friend, maybe go out for coffee with her or something. But Jaimie relies on Mary now for the most basic of needs. Jaimie closes her eyes and lets her mind wander back to her dream. In her dreams, Jaimie runs, because in her dreams, she can.

You’ll never walk again; the doctors say this after delivering the news of Jaimie’s sustained spinal cord injury. Thirty-two years later though, she tries not to dwell on the negative. Hope is a good word. Independence, another good one, and one that describes Jaimie’s drive for the future. Despite the physical limitations that come with being a quadriplegic, Jaimie’s mind is focused, and she is extremely innovative when it comes to her independence. Farming was always one of Jaimie’s favourite past-times, and Jaimie; the first person with her level of injury to drive a vehicle in North America, will be driving her wheelchair accessible tractor over to her daughter’s place which is right next door. Sinead, Jaimie’s daughter, inherited Jaimie’s strong-willed demeanour and she has saved up just enough money to build a beautiful barn to compliment her farm/animal rescue. Jaimie offers to assist, as she always does. It’s taken Jaimie years to firstly design, then save up for, and pay people to construct a wheelchair-suitable tractor from scratch. Jaimie offers to help out by bringing in and levelling fill to start the foundation.

In her tractor, thankful for a rare breeze coming through the screen, Jaimie reviews her task for the day. There’s a swamp on the north-west side of the property and her plan is to break trail today and begin carving out part of the swamp, taking as many buckets as she can back to where the barn is to be built. Why does it need to be right there, in the lowest part of the field? There are higher spots, and we’d need less fill, Jaimie recalls telling Sinead.

“I want to be able to come out on the ramp and see the front doors of the barn,” Sinead had retorted. “Can’t one more perk of having a barn full of animals, be that I can stand out, and admire its beauty from a distance?” Jaimie laughed and agreed. She wants her daughter to enjoy as many perks that this life has to offer. If admiring a barn from a distance is the perk she craves, then admiring a barn from a distance, she shall.

Jaimie puts the machine into gear and sets off, seeing her destination in the distance. It’s a rough trail but the tractor is powerful and she trucks on, encouraging it this way and that with the zero-effort steering, feeling the strain on her back and neck. With a disability comes the feeling of weakness and, in the beginning, she’d be lying if she said that wasn’t how she had felt. Fast forward though. Strength. Ability. Determination.

She reaches the swamp and the height of the tractor allows for a good look. Far off into the distance, the horses are happily grazing. To the north, a gravel road, no traffic at this time of day. Back to the swamp, she assesses where the tractor can manage and sets off slowly, feeling the squish of the earth on the tires as it sinks just a bit. She tries to remember the feeling that she would have gotten if she stepped out of the tractor without shoes on, letting the earth squish between her toes and pad the bottom of her feet. But it’s painful to try and remember what physical things felt like before her paralysis. Jaimie was a nurse, a horse-back rider, and she drove truck for a gravel company for a side income. She remembers when she was 22 years old, Jaimie’s fiancée at the time had said jokingly that he would love to have a boat. Wouldn’t a boat be nice, he had said. Well, yes Jaimie thought to herself, a boat would be nice. She went out the next day, cash in hand and purchased one. But now it is not just about trying to make ends meet, it’s about the financial burden that comes with an injury as severe as Jaimie’s. Home upgrades, vehicle modifications, just to name a few. All out of pocket.

Jaimie trudges on in July’s ruthless heat, wondering where in the world that breeze went. She is going to need a break soon, as the heat takes its toll on her body un-apologetically post-accident. She texts Mary and asks her to bring water, and a spray bottle to help cool her off. Jaimie continues on, back and forth from the swamp to the foundation, bucket after bucket.

Twenty minutes later, there is no response from Mary. Jaimie puts the tractor in park and presses the call button on Mary’s screen. A small but blinding light comes across the screen as Jaimie squints at her phone, trying to see the call button. Continuing to squint and move her head this way and that, she tries to avoid the beam of brightness that doesn’t seem to know it isn’t welcome. She looks up and over to where the light seems to be coming from and then up to the sky. The light isn’t coming from the sun; its as if someone is pointing a laser or a very thin flashlight her way. She peers, and squints more but can’t quite tell where it is coming from. Putting the tractor in drive, Jaimie inches her way forward a bit, peering still to see where the light is coming from. The light is a reflection, on what though, Jaimie can’t be sure, not without getting closer. Mesmerised, her eyes rake over the west side of the swamp, desperately pinning for this puzzling stream of light and its unrevealed source. A sickening sucking sound snaps her back into the present. Jaimie’s mind, although only momentarily withdrawn from the task of inching forward, failed to see a drop off on this side of the swamp. The tractor’s front right tire sinks further and further down into the muck, and the top of the machine begins to fall very slowly to the right. Out of the right-hand window, dark dirty water from the swamp approaches the cab. Jaimie pushes the gas, but to no avail. The power of pushing the gas seems to make the tractor sink further and faster. She feels the back-right tire sinking down as well now, and it’s only a matter of time before one of two things happen; the tractor tips completely sideways into the swamp or, it finishes it’s sinking descend and is simply just stuck. As fate seems to ponder its decision, aggressive honking can be heard. A truck pulls up and a door slams. Mary is screaming at me, “JAIMIE!”

I ask Mary how stuck I am and ask if she believes her dodge can pull me out. Twenty minutes later, the tractor and Jaimie, find themselves on solid flat footing again. Mary wonders what in the world Jaimie was thinking and Jaimie, wishing she had a better explanation, explains the mysterious beam of light and its unknown source as the reason for her distraction. Mary, peers around the swamp, wondering what light. Well, let me just inch forward a bit and take a look, Jaimie says in a joking tone to which Mary rolls her eyes. Sure enough, this little beam of light makes its way to Jaimie’s eye-line again and she explains to Mary it’s approximate whereabouts.

Mary walks carefully around the swamp, and she continues to look back at Jaimie as she directs Mary with her hands, this way a bit, now that way. Mary crouches down, her back to Jaimie, the elusive light cut off now by Mary’s silhouette. Jaimie wills her to get to the bottom of this absurd mystery that nearly caused her to roll the tractor and drown herself. After a few minutes of pushing and pulling at something, Mary turns around, struggling with the weight of what appears to be a brown box. Mary makes her way back, her boots sinking in the damp mud. Jaimie exits the tractor through the lift, eagerly awaiting the identity of the object Mary holds in her hands to reveal itself.

It’s some kind of a box, sort of like a safe. It seems so old though and both women wonder how it got there. The front clasp is metal and they conclude that this is probably the source of the light Jaimie saw. Mary grabs a hammer from the dodge and gives the box a couple of good hits, breaking one side of it. Stacks of bills flutter out of the now broken side, along with a little black notebook. Mary collects the stacks, and Jaimie sits in stunned silence while Mary counts the stacks out, to the tune of $20, 000.00. Mary opens the worn out black notebook, and reads aloud the mysterious writing inside.

The first half of the book reads like a diary, belonging to a young woman by the name of Jessalyn McCaffery. McCaffery? Jaimie questions Mary. The McCaffery’s owned this property years and years ago, long before Sinead and even Jaimie were thought of. The diary tells of Jessalyn’s violent marriage and her struggles to make money on the side and hide it from her abusive husband, in hopes of being able to leave him one day and make it on her own. The very last entry reads, “I may not get to use this after all. It is my hope that this money finds someone who deserves it and will put it to good use.”

Jaimie Johnson is running again. Not quite as fast as usual, as she feels weighed down by something. She looks down at her hands which encase a broken brown box. She hears her name being called again, louder and louder. Jaimie rubs her eyes, and opens them. They focus in on the brown box now on her dresser, the money inside and the notebook on Jaimie’s side table. I promise you Jessalyn, Jaimie thinks to herself, I will put it to good use. Jaimie, although still shocked at her discovery and saddened by Jesslynn’s story, smiles slightly, filled with renewed faith and hope for the future.

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About the Creator

B.P.Hill

Mother to two young beautiful boys, Teacher, Horse-back rider/trainer/coach, Aspiring Writer.

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