13 years
....It was a normal day, just like today.
It was a Friday, as memory serves. A payday even. I woke up thinking it would be just another day. Its funny how those days change your life forever.
And it was normal day; nothing out of the ordinary happened....
....until around 1:00 PM EST.
That was when the truck I was driving was spinning out of control across 3 lanes of traffic as I looked up into the cab of the semi that had hit me. I remember the driver's face. I never saw him again, but I see his face often. My truck rolled and I had one of those crashes like one would expect to see in the Lethal Weapon movie franchise. I remember staring at my socks and shoes as I hung upside in the truck, suspended by my seatbelt with a hacksaw perilously close to my head. The irony, is those socks and shoes were the only clothes not destroyed by the paramedics. I do not remember the second semi that very nearly hit me as I came to rest, upside down, 4 lanes and one ditch from where I began.
You learn to appreciate life when you have stared death in the face; when inches have meant the difference between life and death or walking and paralysis. It took some time for that lesson to fully infuse itself into my psyche. I was lucky. I walked away from that accident just a few hours later. The only immediate physical evidence being one small cut on my hand.
Things could have been much worse.
13 years is a long time. My back is still damaged but the pain has not been as intense in the last two years. It did flare up a little yesterday, a psychological reminder of the significance of February 4th. The pain is subsided now as the realization of its source has quelled it.
I have often looked on today as a painful reminder of that wreck. This morning, as I thought about it, I see it now for the first time as the anniversary of my re-birth in life. The day that started me on the path I am on now. The person I was before the wreck is unknown to me. The person I am now is what matters.
13 years. It can be a lifetime.
It was a Friday, as memory serves. A payday even. I woke up thinking it would be just another day. Its funny how those days change your life forever.
And it was normal day; nothing out of the ordinary happened....
....until around 1:00 PM EST.
That was when the truck I was driving was spinning out of control across 3 lanes of traffic as I looked up into the cab of the semi that had hit me. I remember the driver's face. I never saw him again, but I see his face often. My truck rolled and I had one of those crashes like one would expect to see in the Lethal Weapon movie franchise. I remember staring at my socks and shoes as I hung upside in the truck, suspended by my seatbelt with a hacksaw perilously close to my head. The irony, is those socks and shoes were the only clothes not destroyed by the paramedics. I do not remember the second semi that very nearly hit me as I came to rest, upside down, 4 lanes and one ditch from where I began.
You learn to appreciate life when you have stared death in the face; when inches have meant the difference between life and death or walking and paralysis. It took some time for that lesson to fully infuse itself into my psyche. I was lucky. I walked away from that accident just a few hours later. The only immediate physical evidence being one small cut on my hand.
Things could have been much worse.
13 years is a long time. My back is still damaged but the pain has not been as intense in the last two years. It did flare up a little yesterday, a psychological reminder of the significance of February 4th. The pain is subsided now as the realization of its source has quelled it.
I have often looked on today as a painful reminder of that wreck. This morning, as I thought about it, I see it now for the first time as the anniversary of my re-birth in life. The day that started me on the path I am on now. The person I was before the wreck is unknown to me. The person I am now is what matters.
13 years. It can be a lifetime.