The Day My Life Changed

JUNE 7, 1995 - A Day Like No Other

The day started out just like many other school days for a teenager and the end of the school year was just about two weeks away. It was so close to the end that while sitting in class you could not think of much more than the two and a half months that you are free from teachers, homework, and those early curfews.

Now the day was turning to be a warm, sunny one and so latter that day after school was let out, I went through with my normal routine of going home on the bus with friends. While on the bus, my friends and I discussed meeting at one of their houses to play a game of basketball. But for what was to happen could not have been expected and none of us would have ever thought that it was going to and especially to one of us.

When I meet up with my friends, things didn't go the way any of us expected they would. One of them and myself started fooling around much like teenagers normally do. But after several minutes the two of us started taking it more serious and before I new it neither one was fooling around.

The next thing I remember is being picked up in the air and flipped over his back and hitting the ground. When I landed it never occurred to me that I could not move. The first and only thing I was thinking about was get back up before he did. It must have been only two-to-three seconds from when I hit the ground to when I realized that there was nothing, nothing of a response from my body moving.

At that instant a frightful thought rolled through my mind. That life for me was over and nothing was ever going to be the same, and from that point on it was going to be different, different from what I had every dreamed or wished it would be like.

The next thing I thought of was that this really didn't happen and I was only stunned. I figured that once back up on my feet that I would be fine. So I had my friends try to pull me up. As they started to pull me up, that frightful thought came rushing back and I realized that this was wrong, vary wrong. And that's when it all came clear to me, It happened, it really did and there was nothing I could do to reverse it.

I was paralyzed. I could not believe it and did not want to admit to myself that life was always going to be this way. But I knew that everything was going to be different, everything down to the smallest detail. Details in a persons life that most people don't even think about.

Now it's been many years since that horrible day and I am still in a chair. Although life has not been as bad as I would have thought. But I've meet many people who are in the same condition and have it worse than I, and for that I consider myself extremely blessed and lucky. Now have said that, it does not mean I except what has happened to me but it does mean that I do not take things for granted because I know things could be much worse.