(The picture was taken just after I started walking. It was the first picture ever taken of us together.)
Guest Blogger Week: A love story
Our love story is one born of tragedy. Not the unrequited love kind, but the kind of tragedy that sometimes shakes you to the core and you never fully recover from. Ben and I met in high school, on the practice football field while doing sports medicine for Garner Senior High School. I do not believe in love at first sight by any means, but I must admit, the minute I saw him, I knew. We were friends working together for months when I realized that he was graduating soon, and I may never see him again, so I had to make a move FAST.
We were at a chorus/band event (he was in band, I was in chorus) when I saw him up on stage and waved. Then that feeling of “make your move now or he will never know” came over me and I blew him a kiss. He looked surprised for a moment, then he reached out his hand, “caught” the kiss I blew, and held it to his heart. I was delighted. That afternoon, he asked my best friend for my number and called me. We agreed to go out for a date on Friday night, after I got done with a chorus obligation. He told me to call him when I was ready. I never did.
My best friend asked me to take her home after we got done singing at the Brownstone Hotel in downtown Raleigh, and I did. After I dropped her off, I was in the middle of an unfamiliar area in the country, just driving down a road hoping that this was the way to the highway. When almost at the highway, I saw a “Caution: Stop Sign Ahead.” I applied the brakes to slow down and it seemed that almost instantly, there was impact. At 38mph I had collided with the drivers side of a car going 60mph. My car spun, three or four times before I came to a stop and realized what had happened. I was trapped in the car, my body in between the gear shift and under the CD player, and my car was smoking. The first thought that came through my mind was that my car was on fire and I was going to die. Men who had been at the community building having a hunting club meeting rushed out and pried my door open to talk to me and call 911. The driver that I hit was slumped over and not moving.
It took them two hours and two jaws of life to cut me from my car. The whole time I was screaming that I was okay, to leave me alone and go help the man I had hit. A fireman looked at me and said the words I will never forget, “Ma’am, there is nothing else we can do for him.” I cried out to my God in helplessness, begging for Him to help, and that I was so sorry. But there was nothing to be done. I had just killed a man. Iit was all my fault.
I sustained horrible injuries, and almost died that night from shock and loss of blood. I had emergency surgery to put my legs back together like a jigsaw puzzle and was unconscious for the first three days. The one thing I do remember is Ben coming to be by my side. He was nervous and worried, and the first thing he said was “If you didn’t want to go out with me, all you had to do was turn me down, you didn’t have to do all this.” I remember looking up from my drugged up haze and into his baby blues while he held my hand. It was just a date, he didn’t have to be there ,and he could have easily caught up with me months later after I healed..but from that hospital bed to four years later, he has never left my side.
Ben has been there for me through everything. I had to learn how to walk again which took a year of physical therapy, and he was there for every appointment. He took me out in my wheelchair. I was embarrassed, but he told me that I was so beautiful, no one would even notice I was in a wheelchair. He was there for me to hold on to when I took my first steps in months, and there to hold my hand when I was scared for the next three surgeries I would have.
We have been together for four years and just got engaged eight months ago. There is one thing that I have learned through this whole, painful experience..I want him to be my support for every step I take for the rest of our lives. In this life, I cannot walk alone.
Written by Lauren
