Poetry on Brain Injury by Mary Wheeler

Poems by Mary Wheeler on Loss, Hope and Change after Brain Injury

The White Dove Searching

By Mary M. Wheeler

Our dreams of life are stopped for a brief time as we have floated in the heavens and searched for our dreams.

Our lives have meanings that we do not understand; we are the people who struggle and face many obstacles!

The White Dove opens its wings to fly in searching of answers – why me?

We are the special people who had our moments with the White Dove and the Holy Ghost fighting for a second chance with life.

We are still the same person but our outcomes are so different. We have to change our dreams because we cannot have what we want in life, but we have something that other people do not have – the White Dove flying with us to protect and to seek our goals, with the heavens’ spirit of love for people like us!

The White Dove notices the love we share for people and how we share our ideas on helping each other as we go on in life!

We will make something of ourselves because we never give up on our struggles. I know the White Dove will always fly over my head to guide me through the obstacles of life!

It’s not an easy road, but we are fighters who had to fight for hours, minutes, seconds.

And the white dove opened up his wings from heaven, from the father above, to show us we have our goals set to help people who have to struggle to make it … and may we help each one to open his or her wings TO GO BEYOND THE GALAXY OF SURVIVAL.

Copyright ©2000-2002 by author.
All rights reserved by author.

 HOPE

By Mary M. Wheeler

Hope is a word that means we can make a new Life with help.

A dream that shows us we can live with our problems and people can share a part in our lives while showing us a new path.

To move on with our strengths and weaknesses and to belong in the pathway of life!

We need to be able to share our hopes and to be a part of something. Let us move on into the world of sharing our feelings. We need to have friends who have the same problems as ourselves.

Brain Injury is hard to face, with its heartaches and pain. We feel trapped and endure many agonies of failures and depression. We feel a loss of a part of life we cannot recover, but many of us go on day after day trying to struggle in order to discover some new ways to cope with every day living.

We change every day with small steps of success and torments of pain. We give encouragement to others as we fight for a chance in the real world, but brain injuries do not always show since we can look as normal as the next person.

I have struggled the last couple of years to help people and advocate for change of the feelings of employers. Yet the “regular” world does not understand our hopes and meanings of what we are trying to explain – or they do not see us as regular. “THEY SEE US AS NOT IN THE NORMS OF LIFE!”

I think we could teach people that we do have a lot of qualities they do not posses regarding caring about people, and we do!

My hope is that we can show people we can learn in new ways, show our strength and to understand WE CAN LEARN NEW THINGS, BUT IN DIFFERENT WAYS!

H=HELPING
O=OTHERS
P=POSITIVE THINKING
E=EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

About Mary Wheeler

I am an individual who, in 1968, had a Brain Injury due to Acute Spinal Meningitis. I was in a coma for over 56 hours and found out about Brain Injury three years ago! I was upset about this and decided to write poems to express myself and my inner emotions. Writing poetry has helped to relieve the anger from inside me.

I used the “White Dove” symbol because I have a lot of high spirits and want to share my feelings with people. I want to let them know not to give up, but get involved with our communities so people are aware there are ways to cope with Brain Injury.

I did write a little poetry before the Brain Injury, but not as much as I do now. It is a new goal that I have made in the last few months and at times it is hard to find words. People with Brain Injury do forget some words and we have to use other words for meaning.

Many of us want to be our old selves again but Brain Injury will not let us! We have encouragement and many things we can share with others with Brain Injury. We should care for and support each other because we need to have friends that are going through tough times with physical and emotional situations that go with Brain Injury.

Brain Injury is a fairly new thing. Medical technology now can earlier detect more, which is good, but in the past, for me, was never detected. I just want to say we can make changes in our lives and help others who have Brain Injury.

My goal is to make my community aware of the resources for the Brain Injured and help set up a resource library for the center in my community.

Sincerely yours,
Mary M Wheeler

More poems about persons with brain injuries can be found on Mary’s website at http://www.poetrypoem.com/poetry1000