The Three Lives of Cate Kay

by Kate Fagan

Creating a new life (or lives) takes a devastating amount of energy, of imagination.

What many people don’t understand about serious injury or illness is that what you’re really coming to grips with isn’t the physical limitations (although there is that); it’s how the physical limitations alter your interactions with the world.

At first, you can only take. You take people’s time, their physical energy, their emotional reserves. You’re in a state of need and you take, take, take without giving. And taking without giving, that messes with your head. You start asking yourself what the point of your existence is. A drain on the world’s resources, on the resources of those you love, nothing else.

“I’d tell her that only love will fill the black hole—that it’s the only thing worth chasing.”