Zach Wilson, Raising Canes, Robyn Lua, Aziz Ansari, Yankee Candle Birthday Cake.
Five simple things that changed my life within a matter of minutes. To some people, these are just people or items that they might have heard of, might have seen, might have tried. To me, they are five of the most important things I can remember.
Zach Wilson is the last person that texted me saying to text him when I made it back home. Raising Canes was the last thing I ate before getting on the highway. Robyn Lua was the last person I hugged before leaving for my trip. Aziz Ansari was the last thing I heard before I closed my eyes. The Yankee candle air freshener was the last thing I smelled before I was thrown into a nightmare.
These were all the last memories I had of my five senses before my life was changed forever.
To tell this story we have to go back to November 6, 2014. I had been in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to watch the Alabama Crimson Tide take on one of their better rivals, the LSU Tigers. One of my oldest friends, Zach Wilson had invited me and my brother, Kyle to come and stay with him for the game.
Zach, Kyle and I met our freshman year of high school at football camp. He had recently moved to Texas from Louisiana, and I had recently transferred from private school to public. The second we met it was easy to talk to someone who was in the same boat as I was. From then on, I knew he would be a loyal friend.
That weekend was one I will never forget. I remember going to Tigerland and taking shots with my buddy like we used to at age seventeen, when we would sneak liquor into the house after hours. I remember running into old friends that I hadn’t seen since freshman year, and embracing them, as the Crimson Tide fought on a 60 ft. television. I remember holding the hand of one of friends who tagged along as Alabama went into overtime in Death Valley.
Then, as the crowd got quiet, Alabama stopped LSU from scoring, sealing a victory for the Crimson Tide. The bar went nuts with “the enemy” cheering "Roll Tide," and Tiger fans started heading home.
Zach was a good sport and even starting paying for drinks as part of our barging. I put my arm around him and his girlfriend Robyn and just smiled. I was amazed at our friendship. We went to two rival schools, two bitter teams, yet even a game that had implications for both our seasons couldn’t ruin a night like this.
The next morning I woke to the sound of an alarm buzzing somewhere in a set of brown couch cushions. I had to be at rehearsal by two o’clock and it was already 10 a.m. I woke up Kyle, and we rushed to find everything from our boots to our toothbrushes and packed up the truck.
Zach and Robyn, still partly asleep walked outside to hug us goodbye. I smiled at Zach and gave Robyn a bear-hug as they smiled. It was a good weekend with two great friends. We pulled out of the driveway, headed north on Jennifer-Jean Drive and headed back to Tuscaloosa.
Making great time we stopped at Raising Canes once we reached Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I was tired, but Kyle was hungover. Naturally I wasn’t going to argue for 45 minutes with my brother about driving just to watch him trick me into driving all the way, so I just kept driving. Kyle slowly fell back asleep when we stopped for gas just about 100 miles outside the Alabama state line. I texted Zach thanks, and he responded with a witty comeback about LSU next season and how Leonard Fournette was going to win the Heisman. I chuckled as we approached Meridian, MS.
By now, I had started to daze in and out even on my Adderall. A long night in the Bayou on top of little sleep probably wasn’t the best idea, but I was focused to get to work on the scenes for the play I was in.
As Kyle snored, Pandora was blasting through the radio. Aziz Ansari was talking about his cousin and how he is chubby and like Red Lobster Biscuits. While maybe not my sense of humor, his voice was like a passenger talking to me, keeping me awake. I chuckled as I the road began to swing out and signs appeared for the Alabama state line.
Then, a gunshot sound fired in my eardrum, a loud pop erupted from the bottom of my car. Before I could even notice what had happened, I felt the car begin to lose control. I slammed on the breaks and tried to steer into the dirt and off the concrete. I began to panic as dirt filled the windshield, and I was running out of room. Just as I thought the worst was over, as if a gust of wind swept underneath me, I felt the car slowly begin to flip on its side.
The first flip: I saw nothing but dirt and glass fill my skin and face. The windows shattered and glass protruded from every angle. I couldn’t breathe because my lungs began to fill with the dark soil and smell of gasoline.
The second flip: pictures and memories began to fill my head. It was if I was watching a movie of my life appear before me. Not of me being born, or seeing the future, but of memories I had dreamt of for years. Memories of both good things and terrible moments in my life. Before I had to think of what was even happening, boom.
Third flip: lights out. Total darkness.
People say when you die or have a near-death experience, your life flashes before your eyes. That is not entirely true. For me, memories that helped mold me into the man I am today appeared in my head.
I saw my mother crying as I said goodbye to her two years before, when she dropped me off at college. I can still feel her hug around me and how she smiled, knowing I was going to be okay.
I saw myself as an eight-year-old outfielder in an Orioles uniform, and my Grandpa throwing me pop fly’s to get ready for a game. I remember his smile, as he got down on one knee and said, “You have to find the ball, then track it down and use two hands."
I saw myself and some of my friends at prom. I remember we were sitting out on the front patio of a beach house, drinking whatever crappy beer was in the keg, and my buddy Stan was laughing at a joke Kyle made. We were all laughing, but sad, knowing that High school was over and things were all about to change.
I saw my old high school sweetheart and remembered the first time I told her I loved her. It was February, and I was at park, late with some of my friends when she called and said those three words. I smiled and knew I made the right choice to respond with the three deadliest words in the English dictionary.
I used to think she was the girl I would spend the rest of my life with and say “I do” to. Now she is married with a young baby, and I haven’t seen or spoken to her in over two years. Funny how sometimes promises become broken.
I saw myself in the mirror in a blue uniform covered in sweat. It was my first varsity football game, and I had just thrown up due to nerves. I was shaking like crazy as I heard the voice of my coach call us in for prayer.
All of these moments appeared in my head as I looked helplessly over at my brother who had finally woken up. I thought for a minute that this was the end. This is where my life comes to close.
Where would I go? Would I meet God? Would the world become black? I truly believed at that second, where time froze and everything chaotic stopped moving, I was going to die.
I woke up to the pain of a needle going into my arm. My eyes were burning from the dirt that had entered them, I couldn’t talk due to something in my mouth. I began to panic as I saw nothing but white all around me. Then, out of the blue, a man with a grey beard and Metallica T-shirt looked over me and smiled.
“Shh, Relax,” he said, as I began to feel a warm sensation shoot up my arm. “Everything is going to be okay, you’re not going anywhere with me around.”
I realized I was in an ambulance on a stretcher headed to the hospital. I kept asking the paramedic if I was going to die, where my mother was, or if my brother was dead. No one would answer me as I began to scream. My body was throbbing almost everywhere.
I looked down to see bits of glass sticking out of my left hand and a huge gash on my right arm. I felt sick to my stomach as the Ambulance pulled into the ER. As I was being rolled into an examination room, I saw the word “Meridian” panned out across the wall.
I was less than a 100 miles from my front door step when my tire blew going 85 MPH.
As doctors came in and out of the room, I was wondering where my brother was. No one answered if he was alive or dead. Just as I was being wheeled away for a cat scan, Kyle walked into the room. My throat began to croak and he sat down with the angriest look on his face. He was pissed as hell that I crashed his truck, but he was alive, and that is all I cared about.
Hours went by as more and more doctors kept coming in, and removing the dirt and shards of glass from my body. I was alive and yet I had no idea how. Most people would have died in something like that, let alone be in need of major surgery. Me on the other hand, I just had some minor injuries and a major concussion.
I wanted to see someone, anyone, just to let them know I wasn’t dead and I was okay. A nurse walked by and said I had a visitor. In walked four girls, all with the sigh of relief on their faces. My friends Sydney Anne, Megan, Hannah and Megan’s sister Erin all stopped by.
Syd told me she was driving home and saw the car. She recognized Kyle was there on the road and immediately found out what hospital I was at. I wanted to hug her, I wanted throw my arms around her and thank her for stopping and finding me, instead I started to cry. For the first time in a long time, I cried like a baby. Not tears of sorrow, or tears of guilt, but tears of joy. I was alive by a miracle and I had a friend to help me get through this.
While Hannah and the others left, Sydney Anne stayed with me and Kyle. She tried as best she could to help ease the tension and stress that both Kyle and I were under. She kept telling us stories of her weekend in Baton Rouge and kept asking about my buddy Zach and how we knew each other. It cleared my head for a second from thinking of that crash and the pain I was in.
Six hours, four x-rays, two cat scans, two casts and several stitches later, I was released from the hospital and on my way home to Tuscaloosa. Syd called her friend Harry to come get us. I had no idea who Harry was, or how he knew Syd, but I honestly didn’t care. A kid drove over 100 miles out of his way to get a friend who stayed, in my book he was a saint.
As we pulled up to my apartment, Sydney Anne threw her arms around and muffled “I’m so glad you’re OK.” Lost for words, I nodded and collected my things. I limped my way to the elevator, up three levels, into my one-bedroom apartment and collapsed on my sofa. Finally, this day was over.
On November 9, 2014, God saved my life. It has been a year and it still haunts me. The doctors said I walked away with a broken hand, three broken fingers, a bruised rib cage, a major concussion and whiplash from the seat belt. What they didn’t tell me was the road to recovery would be all mental.
There is not a day that goes by where for at least a second I don’t think of that moment. Whether it is driving and a quick flashback pops in my head, or me sitting at a computer writing an article for work, I still see myself flipping in that car. For months I dreamed every night of the accident, waking up in sweat and even tears sometimes rolling down my cheeks. Every dream was the same, but had a different outcome. Sometimes Kyle would die in front of me, sometimes there would have been people in the backseat I killed, and sometimes it was my dog Cooper back there. Either way I dreamt the same thing every night.
I couldn’t drive for months without the fear of crashing again. I never sped anywhere and people would get annoyed at how cautious I was when driving. There was even several times where I was too afraid to even get in a car. I never wanted to experience that pain again, the horror of facing death in the face.
The leaves are changing again and the anniversary is here. So much has changed since that day in my life. Friends have left, couples who I thought would make it to the end diminished, and people have shown their true colors. So much has changed, I have changed, and hopefully for the better.
Still, there is not a day that goes by where I don’t close my eyes and just ask God “why me?” So much has changed within a year, including me. I will never be the same man I was when I left Baton Rouge, but I’m starting to become the man I think can survive something like this.
It is selfish to be ungrateful for God saving my life, but I just don’t understand it. What made me so special to give me a second chance at life? Less than a year after my accident, one of my best friends was hit by an 18 Wheeler and we didn’t get to say goodbye. Jaimie Witcraft was going to be an Air Force nurse and save the lives of people in danger, instead she lost her life while I got to live. Why did a person who was going to give her life to save others die and some run-of-the-mill writer get to live?
I think of her a lot now. I think of how life is unfair sometimes. How I get to write about living through death while all I have to remember her by is a tattoo on my ankle. Sometimes life isn’t fair, and we don’t get to decide when we go. I guess the serendipity of it all, is that I now have a guardian angel looking out for me.
God also put three people in my life who I can never thank enough. My brother, who eventually forgave me for wrecking his car, sat there for hours and prayed with me as I awaited results and thanked the Heavens I was still alive.
He gave me Sydney Anne, who dropped everything and went out of her way to come find me in a hospital bed. I owe her a lifetime of thank yous and will never be able to repay her back for her friendship. She has always been there for me, and is always a phone call away, for that I am grateful.
Finally, I have to thank God for giving me Harry Stokes. Harry was just some guy who drove over 100 miles out of his way to get a kid he barely even knew from a hospital. Now, he is one of my dear friends who still would drop everything if I was ever in trouble today.
There are somethings you can’t buy, the loyal friendship of these three I can never repay them for. I can only smile and thank them for being there for me.
Ever since I was a little boy, my mom always told me about the power of prayer. A simple 30 seconds put in your day can be the difference between having the worst day of your life, to being blessed to see another moment pass by. I have no doubt in my mind the power of prayer saved my life on November 7. Now, every day, at least for just 30 seconds, I thank God for saving my life.
God works in mysterious ways. There is not a doubt in my mind that there is something bigger than us out there. I have to believe that, or I couldn't be writing this now.
The message I hope people take away from my story is fath. Faith is the most powerful thing out there. Things don't always look great, but only you can allow faith in. Faith is why I'm here today, hopefully it's why you're here tomorrow.
One year ago I should have died. I shouldn’t be watching LSU and Alabama play football, but rather be buried. I shouldn’t be talking on the radio about the SEC, and what teams are going to lose, instead I should be mute and unable to say anything. But I’m not.
For some reason, I was spared by the grace of God. Some people don’t get a second chance, I was one of those lucky few who did. While my future isn’t clear and my path to success is still blocked by several obstacles, I get to still pursue my dreams and make my family proud.
As the sun sets over Bryant-Denny Stadium, I smile, knowing somewhere out there is watching me, knowing I still have a second chance to make things right.
