06/03/2026
Today we celebrate Keisha and her healing journey!
Words by Keisha!
This month marks 10 years since my stroke.
A decade since my life changed in an instant.
A decade since life split itself into two chapters: the woman I was before and the woman I would spend the next ten years rebuilding.
When people hear "10 years," they often think about the milestones. The victories. The comeback story. And yes, there were all of those moments. While in rehab, I had two goals: to walk in high heels again and to complete a 5K the following year. At the time, those dreams felt impossibly far away. I was learning how to navigate a body and a life that suddenly felt unfamiliar. Yet one step, one therapy session, one hard day at a time, I kept going. At the time, I thought crossing that finish line was the miracle. Ten years later, I see things differently.
The miracle wasn't the race. The miracle was becoming the woman who kept choosing hope when life felt uncertain. The moments no one saw. The nights I cried because I didn't recognize my own life. The fear that sat quietly beside me as I wondered what my future would hold. The grief of losing pieces of myself I thought I would have forever. The frustration of wanting my body and mind to do something so simple and realizing they no longer could. The loneliness of smiling on the outside while silently mourning the life I once knew.
No one prepares you for the grief of surviving.
No one tells you that healing often asks you to let go of who you were before so you can discover who you are becoming. For a long time, I thought my greatest challenge was recovering from a stroke. Now I know my greatest challenge was learning to not only trust life again but to trust myself. To trust that even in the middle of loss, something beautiful was still being written because healing is a strange thing.
It rarely arrives wrapped in certainty. It comes disguised as patience, surrender, resilience, courage and determination taking one shaky step when you're terrified you'll fall. It’s choosing to keep going when you have no idea where the road leads.
Looking back, I realize healing was never about becoming the woman I was before. Healing was about becoming someone I had never met.
Someone deeper. Someone gentler. Someone stronger. Someone who learned that scars are not evidence of weakness but proof that life touched you deeply and you stayed anyway.
Someone who learned that broken things can still be beautiful.
As I reflect on these ten years, my heart is overflowing with gratitude for the people who carried me when I couldn't carry myself. My family and yoga family became part of my healing. Their love, encouragement and unwavering belief in me gave me strength on days when I couldn't find it within myself. To have a support system like mine is a blessing I will never take for granted.
And I will forever thank David Bennett!!
God placed you in my life when your strength and leadership was needed most. You were my rock during one of the greatest storms of my life. You protected me, supported me, advocated for me, fought for me, encouraged me and helped carry not only me but my boys through one of the most hardest seasons of our lives. You held us together when our world felt like it was crumbling down quickly. The love you showed us will never be forgotten and you will forever hold a special place in my heart in all of my lifetimes!!
Today, I am not celebrating a stroke. I am celebrating every version of myself that refused to quit. The woman who was terrified. The woman who was angry. The woman who was exhausted. The woman who grieved. The woman who kept showing up. The woman who kept believing. The woman who kept healing. The woman who believed in herself!
If you are carrying your own invisible grief, heartbreak, illness, disappointment or season of becoming, I hope you know this:
You do not have to return to who you once were.
Perhaps healing is not asking you to go backward. Perhaps it is gently inviting you forward. Toward a version of yourself that only hardship could reveal.
Ten years later, I can finally say this with my whole heart, yes, the stroke changed my life.
HOWEVER it did not end it. In many ways, it introduced me to the most authentic version of myself I have ever known.
THE infinitely healing woman.
Still unfolding.
Still growing.
Still becoming.
Still believing in miracles.
And deeply grateful for every step and souls that brought me here.✨
~Ramblings of an infinitely healing woman
