Imagine: Rebecca, 42, the oldest of six, a single and independent woman who cycled and skated with local clubs, loved yoga, lived in her own home in South Philly and worked as a special-education coordinator at Russell Byers Charter School. Her parents, siblings and grandmother all lived nearby. She had a rich, full life. She had never even met an amputee, and suddenly she became one.
She started, Mile 0, at the Art Museum, because that's where she began so many rides and inline skates, "the place where everybody knows my name," she wrote on her blog, A Thousand Miles (www.my-1000-miles.blogspot.com), which has given voice to her journey.
Mile 3 was on the Ocean City Boardwalk, because she loves the ocean and dreams of one day walking on sand and swimming again.
Mile 9 she walked with her mother, who never left her side in the hospital, and "spent the night curled up in the chair next to my bed."
Walking now is an act of faith. Every time she puts weight on her prosthetic leg, "it feels like a cliff over there," she said. "You have to learn to trust the prosthesis."
After Mile 37 she vented over "daily challenges" such as carrying groceries, cooking, doing chores. "With each mile, I'm testing my strength and realizing my losses. Sometimes my body fights back with raw exhaustion."
On Sept. 27, she hit Mile 100. (She wears a pedometer on her hip.) She and her parents went back to Fifth and Washington. She'd been avoiding that corner, terrified.
Unlike many trauma victims, Rebecca remembers.
"In my mind," she blogged, "I go back to that scene way too often. I feel the bystanders at a distance from me. I feel every last ounce of power knocked out of me. I feel the fright, helplessness, and loneliness of those long moments. Waiting."
