One of Those Dates I Always Remember...

What were you doing 20 years ago today? Can you remember? I remember the day very well. The evening of March 3, 1989, I went to High School basketball sectionals with a friend of mine, and my brother Andy. After the game, we went to a pizza place, and then took my friend home. On the way home we were in a bad car accident. So bad that those first on the scene called it a double fatality. That night I was taken to the ER at the hospital in Crawfordsville, and eventually I was taken by ambulance to Indianapolis. I then underwent 7 hours of reconstructive surgery to repair my broken jaw, shattered cheekbones, ripped eyelid, crushed maxillary (upper jawbone), shattered elbow and broken forearm, resulting in a compound fracture. I was told I broke every bone in my face. Saturday (the 4th) is a day that I do not recall, nor will I ever recall, as I spent most of the day under anesthesia. The next thing I remember is waking up, lying in bed, unable to speak, due to a tracheotomy. I spent the next twelve days in the hospital: healing, recovering, and doing a lot of growing up.

Many people ask, do you look any different? I don't think it changed my looks that much, but you decide. Here's a before, during and after picture. It's a little hard to tell because I started wearing contacts shortly before the accident happened. All the pictures of me before the accident are with glasses (don't you love those things?).

My Freshman High School picture, taken about 6 months before the accident:

This picture was taken probably 8-10 days into my hospital stay. Looking back, my mom wishes that she had taken a picture earlier, but at the time, she refused. She had no idea how things would turn out. I didn't look in the mirror until about this same stage, so I only know what I'm told by those who saw me. My mom says my face was swollen to the size of a volleyball. She would prep people before they came in to see me. Anyway, here I am, in the hospital, oh and this is the right side of my face. The left side was the worse side:

Here I am, not long after the accident (4 months?), with one of my four surgeons. This was the specialist for my eye- a surgeon of the eye, doctor of the eye, and plastic surgeon. In the end, the only damage to my eye was a scratch to the cornea that I have to explain to the eye doctor every time I get my eyes checked, but the eye was the main reason for sending my to Indy (you can see the scar from the trach on my neck).

And, a few years later. This is my Senior picture, taken 2 1/2 years after the accident.

So, for all that happened, I don't know that my looks changed that much, but the accident did change me. I learned so many things through the experience. Here's a list:

• Optimism makes a world of difference in trials. My doctors told my mom that my good attitude was one of the reasons I was healing so quickly.
• People care more than you think. My family and I were amazed at the outpouring of love from people at school, my dad's work, family, and especially our ward.
• The Savior taught how to be an example. I know this may not seem to fit, but at the time I was studying the New Testament in Seminary, and as I lay in the hospital bed I thought a lot about His life, and how He handled the trials He had. I wanted to be more like Him in my life. One of the conclusions that I came to was that He was always an example to others, and I wanted to live my life more like that.
• Gratitude. I have never felt more grateful in my life than while I was in that hospital bed. I shared the room with one girl who was 11, but had the body of a 3-4 year old, and the mentality of even younger. She had spent most of her life in the hospital. I felt such gratitude for my life and all that I had been blessed with.
• The power of prayer is real. I knew there were many people praying for me, and it was a real source of strength.
• The power of the priesthood is real. One thing that I remember being repeated in each priesthood blessing was that I was blessed to not have pain. Can you believe that I do not remember much pain from this experience at all? It's true. The most painful thing was physical therapy for my arm the months following the accident.
• Adversity strengthens you.
• ***ADDITION*** I forgot to add determination and hard work. Physical therapy taught me this.
  

Since that experience many years ago, I have had a lot of time to think about it. I have struggled to find a place for it as the years roll on. At first, everything in my life related back to "the accident". It defined who I was. I was who I was because of the accident. I have never had any difficulty talking about it to anyone, and I've always been willing to share my experience with anyone who wanted to hear it. I began to realize that I was not recognizing other moments for growth in my life because I was dwelling so much on this particular trial. I wasn't dwelling on it negatively, but it still became all consuming, to a point. It was almost as if my growth had skyrocketed and then plateaued. As I came to this realization, my pendulum swung all the way to the other side. I never brought it up. I filed it in the back of my brain as an experience that had strengthened me, but not one that defined me. I began to see other opportunities for growth in my life. I did not relate every comment I made in a talk, or lesson, or class at Church, back to "the accident". As a matter of fact, I RARELY brought it up. One day, several years ago, Rick started telling the kids about it. I don't remember how old they were, but it hit me, that my children did not know the story. The story of me. The story that defined me. Or did it? I took a step back and re-evaluated how I viewed the experience.

I feel like I have come back to the middle now, a nice even balance. There are times that it is appropriate for me to share a part of the story with others. I try to recognize those times, and I share the story, or part of the story, or a lesson I learned. But, mostly, I try to live my life true to the lessons that this experience gave me. Did it define me? At the time, yes. And since then I have added to that definition. It will always be a part of who I am, and it will always be part of my growth as a person. I'm happy to say that after 20 years, I have learned where it belongs.