The Long Awakening, a memoir by Lindsey O’Connor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A first person account of experiencing birthing a child, a coma, and a harrowing near death medical journey is what you will find in The Long Awakening. Lindsey O’Connor tells her story with a vulnerable truth that sets you contemplating your own questions to God. She relies on her husband, children, friends, and the medical community to share her miracle return to life. She feels as though it is their miracle – as she was not awake to experience it herself.
She writes: “Every morning in my few moments of solitude before the staff came in or the visitors arrived, I’d take in the life-giving sun, then feel the dread roll over me, as helpless to stop it as I was to pull back the covers and spring out of bed. But how could I dread another day of life that I came so close to not having? How dare I? Won’t God strike me right then and there as an ungrateful slug? How could I dread the gift of a day when there was so much joy, thankfulness, and praise around me and admit that I was any less thankful and joyful than everyone else who came to visit? How could I dread minute followed by minute, no matter how hard, after all the torment everyone I loved had just suffered through? So I told no one.”
Her heroic, courageous recovery and the reclaiming of her motherhood leaves you thankful for what you have. It is not an easy road. She’s totally honest about her struggles, her horror at her near death, and her deep desire to bond with her baby girl whom others raised while she lay in the hospital. Her faith in God goes beyond its borders to move through each day.
Because of my own chronic pain and illness I related to her in many ways and found some answers to some of my own quests. I highly recommend this book of hardship and hope. A Long Awakening is a good read!
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