Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor

I mean, I had this huge scar, but my mother comes rushing in and she says, speak to me, speak to me, because this is my language.

If my language cells are gone,

I will have no language, and I will struggle the rest of my life for language.

And I whispered to her, I'm better.

I'm better.

And what I meant by I'm better was that I felt bright again.

I felt bright.

I felt like whatever life was going to give me at that point in time, I had brightness.

I was still alive.

I did not die that day.

And when, you know, so many people have said, how, what motivated you to get better?

Or how can you, could you have been so happy?

And it was like, I did not die that day.

And

That meant no matter how disabled I was, I could not walk, talk, read, write, recall any of my life.

I became an infant in a woman's body at the age of 37.

I completely fell off the Harvard ladder and none of that mattered.

All that mattered

Because I was alive.

And what that meant was I had the potential to grow and heal and become whatever I would become.