The botanic gardens are empty but for a small spattering of mothers with daughters, husbands with wives, friends laughing among the dried trees and bushes, their nametags curled in on themselves, mimicking the brown leaves that cover the ground. The hot glue I used to affix purple ribbons to pins and jewels to ribbon breaks apart like rubber that's lost its stick. A plastic badge hangs from a black lanyard around my neck; it says:
Erica Egge
I had brain surgery in January 2011 and have been seizure-free since.
The most formative year of my adult life reduced to such a small sentence. How insignificant it seems as I read it upside down. The question that has been growing since summer appears in my mind full fledged: what now? What am I supposed to do now? How could anything compare to the courage I've found within myself, the inspiration I've given others in return for that which they gave me? Do I return to the life I had before? It seems so unremarkable. Could my soul survive on the nourishment of volunteering or is that not enough? I can still blog, still talk, still advocate, but it's not enough.
Today was the Foundation's kick off to the event series Living Well With Epilepsy. Dr. James Rouse did more than speak, he inspired. He pushed us to do more for ourselves and each other. Near the beginning of the seminar, he asked us to reach our hand in the air as high as we could. Then he said to reach higher, and every hand grew at least an inch. He observed that no one really reached as high as they could until they were pushed further. It's that extra inch, he said, that we need to live in. That extra inch is where we find greatness. It made me think.
What about a fund? What if I raised a fund that would award grants to epilepsy research and outreach programs? Could I pull it off? I'd have to raise it from scratch, find ways to promote it, figure out how best to invest it and, maybe the most difficult, how to award it. How would I decide who and what most deserved it? How much would I, or could I, give? Could I really pull it off?
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