Fast forward five years, four months and two days. It's 2015. I can't even believe how much and quite frankly how little things have changed in five years. The day my dad was paralyzed was truly life changing. I remember the very second I saw my mother's face change, the moment I held my father's hand in the ER and the tears that just wouldn't seem to stop falling from my eyes. It hasn't been easy getting where we are now and it probably won’t be easy for many years to come, but the gratitude I have for getting to share my life with my father is something I will never be able to fully express.
When I was a freshman in high school, I had to watch my hero learn how to fly again. He spent countless hours depressed and I missed the man who used to make me laugh when I was down. He had to learn how to basically function in a everyday life without using his legs and and strange enough, his abs. I don't think many people realize that every single thing you do in life requires both of those functioning body parts. He was basically stripped of everything he has ever known and forced to learn how to do things a new way. Showering, getting dressed and driving yourself to work are three extremely crucial things that adults do everyday and once those three basic daily activities become altered to do without your legs it makes things interesting. It took my dad a few years to master these things people learn to do when they are young. It took a lot of time, but also strength and confidence to learn how to do these things on his own without anyone’s help. He then got tired of being able to just get ready for his day and not be able to go anywhere, so he ordered wheel chair accessible hand controls for his car. You simply strap them onto the brake and accelerator and use one hand to control both levers, while driving with the other hand. He set out on a mission and he drove all the way to the free way with no help at all. His accomplishments just kept coming. Once he was realized that all it takes to live a normal life is to just go out there and try your best to do it, you can be the person you’ve always been.
Everyday he continues to amaze me. He lives a life that no one on earth, besides another paraplegic would say is normal, but to me it is seemingly normal. To say that I am thankful for having my father in my life still would be the biggest understatement I have ever said. Each and everyday I wake up knowing that I still have my hero and I get to continue to build a relationship with the one man who always sees the good in me. The relationship we have created in just five short years is worth more than anything I could ever own. His everlasting love for me and dedication to being the best father he can be proves to me that everything in this world happens for a reason. Thank you will never be enough to show him that what he does for me daily is enough to last me a lifetime.
The day he was in his accident, we all thought our lives would come crumbling down and they wouldn't ever be the same again. Well truthfully, they aren’t the same, but they are better in so many ways. When you are faced with challenges in life, you can either sit there and let them overtake you or you can wheel right over them in your wheelchair with a smile on your face.
I love you Dad.
