15th Annual Zach's Dead Day

I like to joke that I died in an accident, which just happened to occur fifteen years ago today.  And, while it’s technically true, for a few minutes, at least, it’s mostly a joke.  Because that’s the way I learned to handle something that forever altered the way I have to live my life.  It was a decision I made all those years ago, when it was a matter of choosing hope and humor or falling into a much darker place that I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have made it out of.  (Excuse the prepositional ending there, Dr. Hopson.  It’s intentional.)

I think everyone reaches a point where their life is broken, where you had the life before and the life after and they’re so drastically different that they seem to be entirely separate entities altogether.  For me, the first of those was my accident.   Long story short, when I was sixteen, I was hit by three drunks in a pickup.  They crushed my compact car and most of me.  I was left with some scars, some of which have faded and other that haven’t, and some pretty nasty nerve damage in my right hip that leaves me in greater or lesser degrees of pain every minute of my life, for the rest of my life.  It’s also made it so that I’ll never do lots of things that I once could, like run, swing dance or get into a car without, for just a little moment, wondering if I’ll ever get out again.  It’s been fun.

In the beginning, I was angry and wildly unrealistic about my chances for recovery.  As it was, I had a near miraculous one.  I wasn’t supposed to be able to walk again and had to spend nearly three years in therapy learning to do just that, during which I developed an immense respect for your average toddler.  Over that time, I learned patience, gained a lot of perspective on priorities and life as a whole and basically became a different and, I hope, better person.  I learned to cherish life and to live, rather than just drift through it.

Now, I’m not angry anymore.  I’ve even gotten past this strange need I once had to find the people who’d hit me and look them in the eye.  I realize now that it was just the last vestiges of that anger and bitterness, that need to blame someone for something that was.  It wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t make anyone’s life better, only worse.  And if you waste all your energy on blame, you never have anything left to learn to let go and move on.

The first anniversary of my accident, I had, at the urging of my friends, the first annual Zach’s Dead Day party, which made things easier and kept me surrounded by people who cared at a time when I desperately needed it.  I've still got some pretty fantastic friends, if not all of the same ones.  I continued to celebrate for a few years, and still think to so do, now and then.  Today seemed like a good time to think about it all, then put it away for another year, as I always do.

I won’t lie and say that there aren’t times, when things are particularly tough, that I don’t wonder what my life would be like now, had I never been injured, were things different.  There are good things and bad things, but when it comes down to it, I can’t really know.  And while I’m no fatalist, I think some things do happen for a reason and I can point to a number of pretty good ones in this case.  My life isn’t in the best place right now.  Like so many others my age, I’m staring down a very uncertain future, but I’m still thankful, all the same, to have a future at all.  And I think that’s what matters.