The Inside Scoop on Those White Vans

Nine months after by brain injury, I discovered Rehab....
where the occupational therapist took away my driving privileges. The experience 90 year olds fear most had now arrived in my life ....40 years early.

My world had already gotten smaller than a postage stamp, and in that moment, my entire universe collapsed in on itself. I was a single mom in a rural state, trying desperately to hang on to my last remaining role, that of "mother", and now I couldn’t drive?! How was that going to work? That would have been hard enough without a TBI but with one, life became impossible. 

Getting food meant walking a nauseating half mile to the grocery store, with trekking poles in each hand, wearing an empty backpack to carry food home in. I had mapped a path with 3 benches and 2 churches, where I could sleep along the way. The excursion took half the day. Recovering from it took the other half. After the first grocery trek, I learned what could not be transported in a backpack. We had already given up so much. Now we gave up something as basic as eggs. I spent months confused about how to get eggs. I just couldn't figure it out.

I couldn’t take busses because the shaking disoriented me too much. My world collapsed in on itself so hard, it must have fallen through a worm hole. For on the other side, I found myself in another universe.... the strange foreign universe of Special Services Transportation (SSTA) vans. These are the white vans all over the roads, that you never notice until you start using them. I was saved! 

My white stallion however, was more like a white nag. I could now get rides, but they wouldn't drive my son. Every time he needed to get somewhere, we had a problem. Our lives became even more overwhelmingly complicated. I was as dizzy and loopy as if I had drunk 3 6-packs, and getting him to his appointments was a puzzle I couldn't solve. After calling a few friends, I would give up and stress out for four days, losing sleep about an upcoming appointment. Somehow, by the grace of the higher powers that watch out for us, it worked. More often than not, someone would call while I was sitting in tears, feeling helpless that he had to be at the orthodontist in an hour. Angels appeared.

When I started using the special services transportation vans I hated it. While I was grateful for the ride, I had lost my freedom. Imagine.... to get anywhere, it needs to be scheduled at least one day in advance. The drivers can pick up 15 minutes early or 30 minutes late. You have to pad each errand by 45 minutes on either end. That's 90 minutes extra per errand. If you are like me, and you are used to efficiently lining up three stops in the same area, forget it. One errand at a time or you will have to pad each one with 90 minutes. If they didn't have what you wanted at the store and you need to go to another store, forget it. If you spontaneously realize there is something you need or want to do that day, forget it. You can't. There was and still is, nothing efficient about my new life. 

I was severely depressed. I didn't know what I was doing there with the elderly and disabled people in wheelchairs who made me feel even more broken and disabled. This was a new world I was immersed in, and I felt out of place, as if there was some big mistake. They didn't know what I was doing there either. The drivers did double takes.... until they got to know me. 

Pre-TBI, I loved being of service to others. Now I felt useless. What was I doing stuck here in this van with broken people when I had work to do in the world? It made me nuts, until in an aha moment, Oprah-style, I realized that this was an opportunity to make a difference with people who needed it the most. The people on these vans had very difficult and very lonely lives. 

This was actually an opportunity I would never have had before in my able-bodied active life full of able-bodied active people. 

I began practicing just Being Love on the van. It became my new ministry. 

Adventures began.

I started to talk with people. Amazing conversations like this unfolded. 

Passenger: "I don't know where I am going. I'm scared ." 

Me: "It's ok. The driver knows where you are going. You'll be fine." 

"Driver, where am I going?" 

"The same place we go everyday David. You are going to Adult Daycare." 

"Oh. What do I do there?" 

"The same thing you do everyday David. Here we are."

Me (delivering a hypnotic suggestion): "David, you are going to have a great day here today."

David stops, and stares at me for a long minute, "Thank you very much for saying that. Thank you for noticing me." 

My heart is so deeply pierced, tears fall out. 

I wonder how many people ever see him or talk to him? A simple little connection can make such a huge difference. I used to have to work really hard doing complicated hypnosis techniques to feel like I helped people. It really is simple.

One day I was having a lovely conversation with a passenger who had Down's Syndrome, until I realized that he wasn't talking to me. He was just talking. I smiled and stopped my side of the conversation and beamed some love his way. 

As he got off the van at Daycare, he turned back around, walked toward me, and leaned in to kiss me. Before I could recover from my shock, he literally skipped off the van wearing the biggest cutest grin you’ve ever seen, like that was the biggest thrill he had ever had. The driver and I were left completely stunned and laughing all the way home. It made SSTA history. 

I'm turning lemons into lemonade.