Sunday Scribblings: Defiant

 This week's Sunday Scribblings' word is defiant.

I don't think of myself as particularly defiant.  In fact, when I've been defiant and resisted the will and way of others, not much good came of it.  In fact, I lost ground.

In other words, I don't have a particularly defiant will or personality.  I am a bit more defiant when I'm resisting something as part of a group, but as an individual, in the face of authority or in the face of those I disagree, I am rarely defiant.

That said, something defiant lives in me and it is more powerful than my will.  It has gone into action without my conscious bidding and is deeper than the act of making a choice.

I'm not quite sure what to call this defiance.  It resides in my body.

It has been my ally in the face of death.

When I was nineteen years old, as I've written about before, I was gassed at the Bunker Hill Zinc plant.  As the accident unfolded, in the bottom of a flash roaster, I saw no way out.  I didn't defy death.  I consciously submitted to it.  I put my hands flat against each other to form a pillow, laid on my side, with my hands beneath my cheeks, closed my eyes, and consciously said good-bye to my life.

Evidently, my body wasn't ready to die.  Something inside me defied death and fought hard against the sulfur dioxide and other the toxic mineral dust and I survived and strength surged through my arms and legs when I found a ladder to climb and pulled myself out of the roaster.

That was in 1973.

In 1999, aggressive bacteria attacked my meninges and my wife and two friends rushed me to the ER.  The bacterial meningitis struck so quickly that I didn't have a chance to choose to live or die.

I fell into about 72 hours of unconsciousness.  This dread disease pushed me close to death.

But, my body defied it.  My conscious mind didn't. My spirit, no doubt, helped.  But the defiant troops within me, aided by strong doses of antibiotics, defied death, fought off this meningitis, and I survived.

I suffered after effects: head aches, depression, kidney disease, and other problems, but my body, in the long run, has defied these maladies.

Yes, I suffer severe chronic kidney disease, but I am a fully functioning person.  I have suffered a certain amount of kidney damage, but if it doesn't worsen, and over the last eight years or so it hasn't, I'll continue to do fine.

My body defies getting worse.  It insists on me remaining as strong as I can be and will not give in to this disease I carry.

I see things holistically, even if this piece of writing doesn't suggest that.  I know that my mind and body and spirit work together.

So often, however, being defiant is discussed as an expression of the mind or the spirit.

I don't deny that, but I think my body has been defiant over the years.

I want to acknowledge that, even if I can't explain it.