Coming back from a traumatic brain injury is not easy, but one Montreal woman not only healed, but is now helping others through art.
Artist, teacher and mentor Sonja Boodajee has had to overcome incredible odds just to be able to stand.
“It was really hard at the beginning. I really hated myself,” she said.
Sonja and a friend were involved in a high-speed, head-on collision in Mexico 21 years ago.
Like the pottery they'd just bought, her body was smashed.
“She was like a broken little bird and I just remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, how are we going to put her back together?’” said rehabilitation specialist Rosalba Guerrera.
“I was so tired, I took the fetal position, and all I know is I had 22 fractures, brain injury and coma for 11 days,” said Boodajee.
When she awoke, she remembers staring up at the curtain rods above her hospital bed.
“And I asked to have a pencil to draw them,” she said.
An artist, dancer and musician who was also working, volunteering and studying at Concordia University at the time of the crash, her need to be creative pushed her back to life.
“There is that sense of desire to do what you love, that to you is your survival mechanism right there,” said Boodajee.
Immediately following 14 months of intense therapy at the Gingras-Lindsay Readaptation Centre in Montreal, she went back to school, not only to complete her bachelor in fine arts, but went on to earn a master’s degree in art therapy at Concordia as well.
She now puts those degrees to good use, helping people with emotional or psychological difficulties.
“There's an authenticity in what you make, and that cannot lie to you,” she said. “It's not about creating a Michelangelo or a Picasso but about acknowledging who you are with the resources that you have, to put together a new reality.”
Boodajee said she doesn't pretend her reality is what it was before the accident. She now walks with a limp and her brain injury affected her speech, ability to organize thoughts and to concentrate.
“I'm trying to create that reality in the now, not fabricate a reality that I had,” she explained.
But she's come much further than most would have thought possible.
“Underneath that fragile little bird was the strength of a woman and someone who really wanted to go far and get back to everything she was passionate for,” said Guerrera.
“Every day, I get up and I thank God for my daughter and she has taught me a lesson that no one else could,” said Boodajee’s mother, Ursula.
Boodajee is creating a new life, no matter what it throws you, with courage and perseverance.
“This was supposed to happen to me, whatever it was,” she said. “I'm back here to help others and acknowledge what I have.”
