One day I was driving home from a very busy day at work. A teenager ran a stop sign coming out onto the four lane. Our eyes met in that nanosecond before the crash. The look of horror burned into my consciousness. She hit me broadside then spun around and hit me head on and, because I had slammed on the brakes and was holding, she bounced back and kept spinning until she was in the ditch - backwards.
My first memory was of a man running to me and yelling for somebody to call an ambulance. My second memory was seeing the Ford emblem from the front of the car laying on my dashboard. The next memory was realizing that the inside passenger handle was over the handbrake and then - only then did the pain permeate every fiber of my being. I have never dealt pain anywhere even near 1% of what I felt in that moment. Every single cell seemed to scream pain.
Yes I had fractures and multiple organ injuries, but the most transformative was the double brain injury - meaning two YES TWO areas of my brain was injured. I was in cognitive rehab for almost three years. Early on they tried to determine the extent of the ramifications and they were severe. My memory was nearly non-existent but the very worst of it was that I could no longer read. I had to relearn to read.
Before that was determined one of the tests clearly showed that I could still write. It’s an enigma as to how I could structure written communication but I couldn’t read. My cognitive rehab team signed me up for a college class and it had to be something that I had no previous education in - Economics. It was a disaster. I left feeling like a failure although the professor tried so hard. I refused to try another class and then we found ICS.
I was enrolled in the Journalism and finished it in record time. What should have been two years took me less than 8 months. Then I was enrolled in the Children’s Institute of Literature and learned how to write for children. This two year program took only 6 months.
Along the way it was heavily reinforced that I must be a lifelong learner in order to continue to gain cognitive function. I was given all sorts of assignments such as finding an object in a huge mall - which I failed miserably because I absolutely could not remember what I was suppose to find. i resolved that day to never give up - N E V E R.
So I enrolled in some screenwriting classes and it was in the one taught by Greg Pincus of “Little Big League” that I knew that I had to continue with my education. I tried screenwriting but just couldn’t have the cognitive control to craft it. i had a meeting with Jerry Bledsoe who was a prolific writer including ‘Blood Games”. His encouragement was something I value to this very day. In fact in many ways my subsequent success could be traced to his kind words.
Then my rehab team suggested continuing my upper level education and thus I was enrolled in a PhD program. This took me about a year and through the process I learned so much about so many topics. There are so many outstanding memories but one that I go back to often is my visit to a mosque. There was a young man who came in right behind me and noticed that I looked confused and in truth I didn’t know what to do really. He took me under his wing and became a source of learning for many months for me.
He was about 14 I would say and I was impressed that his family allowed him to take Charlotte transit and his answer became a sort of life affirming lesson which is
THEY BELIEVE IN ME AND BECAUSE OF THEIR
CONFIDENCE.
I GROW AND BECOME SUCCESSFUL.
Can any parent ask for more?
To be believed in is the catalyst that keeps us going no matter the challenge. Knowing that someone else things you can do a thing becomes a prophecy of success.
Growth is rooted in hard work and an unwavering KNOWING that you can.
The only true reason for success to help others along their path.
Newsweek, yes the NEWSWEEK, found out about my work with Junior Achievement and asked to profile me. This was an incredible affirmation of all that I had gone through. See the secret sauce is this:
IF I CAN SO CAN YOU.
Lots of challenges have been met since that cold February day in 1992. I never lost hope. I always believed what my Mom told me was true - You can do ANYTHING that you put your mind to.
Before the wreck I was the 5th top producing mortgage loan producer for the 3rd largest bank in America. But what I’ve done since I would never been able to do if it hadn’t been for that kid ignoring a stop sign:
* Paralympic Torch Bearer
* National Brain Injury Association Ambassador
* ICAN (Information and Care for Arthritis in the Nineties) radio show.
* Board Member for the National MS Society - Carolinas
* Pace The Challenge - the travel company I started for people with disabilities.
* Formulating and Implementing a Brain Injury ‘memory’ notebook where I had once been a patient.
* Creating the Accessible Parking Enforcement Unit of the Charlotte Police Department which became extremely important on 9/11.
* Being recognized by President Bush with a 9/11 medal.
* RARELY missing any event that my daughter was involved in.
* Getting out of the wheelchair, into a scooter, then a wheeled rocker, followed by a cane and now usually NO MOBILITY DEVICE
* Community Policing / Community Development Committee
* Being brave enough to Scuba Dive one last time
* FBI profiling associate.
* G-Man award
* Teaching on the college level
* Teaching on the High School level
* Supporting my daughter as she lived her dream of being in The Lost Colony.
* Writing and having a play staged - “The Royal Children”
* National Park Service Volunteer
* National Park Service Employee
* Metrolina Association for the Blind Board Member
* Pioneering an audio program for recording the reading of books for blind folks
* Transcribing The Lost Colony script into a huge font so that those with visual challenges could enjoy attending the show.
* Being a part of a christian band and being on their CD
* Owning multiple businesses
* Keeper of the Dream Award - The Lost Colony
* Becoming published hundreds of times across many genres.
* Creating Cherokee worksheets for the Eastern Band
* Writing the entire K-12 Cherokee Language curriculum for the Eastern band.
* Teaching traditional native american glass bead weaving.
* Giving talks on Native American issues to the public and at schools
* Becoming a jewelry artist.
* Becoming a motivational speaker
* Becoming a painter
* Learning how to play the Mandolin, 6 octave harmonica, Dulcimer and Ukulele.
* Learning other Native American crafts including moccasin making and dream catcher weaving - and teaching them too.
* Drawing the floor plan for our home, overseeing it being built, moving the parents into it and finishing the sale of all inland real estate.
* Being a Cheerleading Coach
* Helping to plan my daughter’s wedding and seeing it through
* Visiting innumerable colleges so that my daughter could choose the one best suited to her.
* Tony Award
……… and I’m probably forgetting some things, but none of this is the point.
The lesson is this:
……. IF I CAN DO IT YOU CAN TOO ……..
It all starts with an idea, morphed into a seed, planted in nourishing soil, being well tended and encouraged, breaking through the challenges and emerging stronger than you would have ever been without the initiating event.
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