Chapter 4 — The Valley of Breaking

Hospitals teach you how fragile the body is — but they also show you how strong the spirit can be.

Waking in the Wreckage

I woke to the sound of a single, steady beep slicing through the dark. The light above me was white, sterile, and blinding. Plastic tubes crossed my face. A cold weight pressed against my neck. I tried to move, but the command never reached my body. Only my arms obeyed; no matter how many times my brain shouted at my legs, the answer was always the same — nothing.

From my chestline down, there was silence — a hollow stillness that felt like absence. My head throbbed from hitting the windshield at sixty-five miles per hour, my back screamed in ways words can’t touch, and my feet burned like they were plugged into a high-voltage line.

I begged the doctors to cut them off. “Please — I can’t take it anymore.” They didn’t.

So I lay there, the air thick with alcohol wipes and metal. My lips were cracked, my tongue thick, waiting on nurses to bring a drink, help me pee, or deliver food. Freedom — as I’d once known it — was gone. My brain told me this was temporary. The doctors said it would be life.

Yet even then, I held on to what I had seen and heard in the light — the promise that still echoed louder than every machine around me:

“You’ll recover — if you believe and never stop trying.”

Those words gave me hope beyond despair — a hope I’ve leaned on every day since. In that sterile brightness, pain and purpose collided. I was alive — but the man I had been died on that highway.

Heaven’s Presence in the Halls

The nights were long and mostly sleepless. Machines hummed. Doors whispered open and shut. But I was never truly alone. Heaven’s presence filled that place — sometimes quietly, sometimes so strong it startled people who didn’t know what to do with it.

Some nurses refused to take my room; they said they could feel something they couldn’t explain. Others stayed and became part of the miracle — reading Scripture aloud, praying with me, even singing softly when pain made words impossible.

I had some of the most amazing caregivers I could ever imagine. They weren’t just professionals — they were people who carried light. One nurse brought me a Bible every morning and read a chapter before starting her rounds. Another would play simple games at night to distract me from the burning that never stopped.

Though my body was broken, my spirit was alive. The staff turned that sterile room into a sanctuary. On my last day there, one nurse surprised me with a balloon bouquet made out of hospital gloves — bright, funny, full of heart. It reminded me that I wasn’t just another number on a bed; I was a person they truly cared about.

Those months taught me something I’ll never forget: heaven doesn’t always come with wings. Sometimes, it wears scrubs.

First Movements

The first weeks at Shepherd Center blurred together — days measured by therapy schedules, nights by the rhythm of machines. But even through the haze, I’ll never forget the first time they lifted me out of bed.

The nurses rolled in what looked like a metal crane with straps — the Hoyer lift. They called it my “ride,” trying to keep things light, but to me it looked like surrender. They slid the canvas sling beneath me, clipped the straps, and the motor began to hum.

The bed fell away. The room tilted. I hung there, weightless — not free, but suspended between who I had been and who I was becoming.

When they lowered me into the wheelchair for the first time, my body felt foreign. If I didn’t look down, it was as if I were floating in air — held up by nothing but those straps and faith. The ground no longer felt real. The chair didn’t feel like part of me yet; it was something I sat on, not something I lived in. Losing all sense of perception is one of the strangest, most indescribable feelings I’ve ever known.

From that moment, every small task became a mountain. I learned how to dress, feed, and move myself again — not with ease, but with patience. I had to relearn how to breathe deeply, how to speak clearly through scar tissue and fatigue, even how to swallow without pain.

Therapists ran speech tests, memory drills, and coordination exercises that felt like boot camp for the soul. They pushed, encouraged, laughed, prayed, and refused to give up on me. When the sessions ended, I often sat in silence — exhausted but thankful that I could still feel something, even if it was only weariness.

Each day carried a new “first.” First time sitting upright without tipping. First time transferring without help. First time brushing my own teeth. Tiny victories that most people never think about — but to me, each one felt like reclaiming a piece of the man I used to be.

The Crossroads

By the third month, I had learned every sound in that building — the hum of vents, the squeak of wheels, the soft voices of nurses who cared enough to stay past their shift. But I had also reached a crossroads.

The doctors said progress had leveled off. The data said this was it. That I should start “accepting.”

But I couldn’t.

Something inside me — the same quiet voice that spoke in the ambulance and in the light — whispered again: This isn’t where your story ends.

So I decided: if there was one more inch to gain, I’d fight for it.

From that day forward, therapy became worship. Every repetition, every strain, every breath that hurt was an act of defiance against despair — and a declaration of faith.

The nurses and therapists became my brothers and sisters in battle. Some prayed over me before a session; others found creative ways to make me laugh through the pain. Each one played a part in keeping hope alive when my body wanted to give up.

When the time finally came to leave, I wasn’t sure I was ready. Shepherd had become holy ground — a place where pain met purpose, where strangers became family, where Heaven itself brushed the edge of earth.

As I rolled through those doors for the last time, tears blurred the sunlight. I didn’t know what waited beyond the parking lot — only that I would never be the same man who arrived there months before.

Life After Discharge

Freedom, I quickly learned, looks different when you no longer stand on two feet.

My first journey after discharge was back to the scene of the accident — by train. It was a long ride, full of bumps and turns. At one point I realized I needed to use the restroom but couldn’t make it there alone. There was no nurse to call, only an elderly woman across the aisle — kind but clearly unable to help. I sat there helpless, praying for the ride to end, realizing how much independence I had lost.

When I finally arrived and rented a car, I was excited — until I had to lift my heavy wheelchair across my chest and into the passenger seat. Without abdominal muscles, every inch of that lift felt like moving a mountain. I soon discovered that “just jumping in and out” was no longer an option. Every simple task now required strategy, strength, and patience.

There were days I’d pull up to where I was staying, exhausted from even short trips, and realize I didn’t have the strength left to get out. So I’d sit there — in the driver’s seat — for hours, resting or sleeping, waiting for enough strength to build back up to transfer into my chair and make it inside to my own bed.

One night, I was so tired that all I could think about was lying down in that bed. Somehow I gathered what little energy I had left and managed to roll myself to the door. But as I tried to cross the threshold, the front wheels caught on the doorjamb, and before I could react, the chair flipped backward. I hit the cement hard.

It was my first of many wheelchair spills, but that one taught me more than any therapy session. In those early days, pulling a limp, uncooperative body back into a heavy iron chariot on wheels felt nearly impossible. The chair wanted to roll away from me instead of under me, and I lay there for what felt like forever, catching my breath, praying for strength — and then somehow, I found it. I got back in.

The reality hit even harder the first time I pulled up to a friend’s house. Before the accident, I could park, hop out, and knock on the door. Now, a single step might as well have been a wall.

I remember sitting there, staring at the front porch, knowing they were home but unable to get to them — unable to make enough noise for them to hear my horn or see me waiting. The only choices were to crawl, scoot on my hands and knees, or turn around and leave. So I left.

That’s the part most people never see — the quiet battles of adaptation. Every curb, every cabinet, every uneven sidewalk became a test of will.

Upon leaving North Carolina, I took my first solo flight — right out of the same airport where it all started. This time, I was heading to Ohio, where my family would help carry the next stage of my recovery journey. I quickly discovered that flying in a wheelchair is no small feat. The wait at the security counter felt endless, standing by for a male attendant to arrive and conduct a full pat-down — one that left no corner unchecked and no comfort spared. Then came the narrow aisle chair transfer, the delicate balancing act of being lifted onto the plane seat with strangers watching and offering awkward sympathy.

And once seated, reality hit again: if you hadn’t used the restroom before boarding, you were out of luck. There’s no easy way of getting up, and most flight attendants have never assisted a disabled passenger, making it nearly impossible to reach the main lavatory — moments that can quickly turn desperate. You just endure, and you pray for landing.

Travel — once effortless — had become another journey of faith. But each new challenge taught me more about endurance, patience, and trust.

And yet, grace always met me in those small, humbling places. When I couldn’t move mountains, God moved moments — and somehow, that was enough to keep me going.

Leaving the Valley

As the days turned into weeks, I began to see that healing didn’t come in sudden leaps — it came in inches. Not in hospitals or therapy rooms, but in the quiet moments when no one was watching.

There were still hard days — more than I could count — but there was also a steady peace that grew deeper than pain. It was in the laughter of friends who refused to treat me like I was broken, in the small victories no one else noticed, in the strength it took just to keep believing.

I didn’t yet understand what God was doing, but I knew He wasn’t finished. Somewhere inside, I could feel Him preparing me for something bigger — something that would reach far beyond my own recovery.

What I didn’t know then was that this was only the beginning of a journey that would carry me across the country — and deeper into faith than I had ever gone before.

The valley hadn’t been the end. It was the turning point. The place where breaking became rebuilding — and where the story of Hope Forever truly began.