The Bar and Back

Self-pity overwhelmed my mind as I walked a quarter mile to the Brew’s Tavern. Yes, I could walk. Praise God for that. But a quarter mile was nothing to my athletic college friends.

Forging a new identity, apart from the “Miracle Girl” label, which was stuck on me in high school, proved to be more difficult than I anticipated. At college, not many people really knew about my disabilities and my accident, unless they paid close attention to how I walked or unless I told them. It felt great to have a place to feel more normal, not to have everybody know about my rehabilitation journey. Without realizing it, I constantly attempted to figure out who I was apart from my trauma. What did I like? Did people like me? What was I passionate about? The good, solid concussion I received along with my spinal cord injury wiped out most memories of my first 14 years. Not exactly amnesia, it felt like the huge accident overshadowed everything else, pushing all my memories and sense of identity to the recesses of my mind. Now, I was “Sarah, the girl who was learning to walk and live again.”

While at home on summer break, with no college friends around, I tried to pick my brain up out of the ditch it had fallen into. “I should go for a walk.” Just down the road, the bar made a good destination point. So, I headed out—with the goal of getting to the bar and back. Up and down the rolling Pennsylvania hills, past the farms and cows, I aimed for the lonely tavern that loitered in the “Y,” an intersection of country roads. The half mile round trip would be a great accomplishment. But I felt weary of celebrating major accomplishments, which were minor — or not even noted — among normal young adults. Self-pity dominated my brain, and I could feel its heaviness in my body as I trudged uphill for what seemed like the whole way to the bar.

Let me pause here and communicate a helpful bit of information I gleaned about self-pity: Morrie really helped me with this one, and I like to share some powerful knowledge that effectively pushes back on the ever-present self-condemnation. In the book, Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom shares about his weekly meetings with his former professor, Morrie Schwartz, as he declined due to Lou Gehrig’s disease which, each passing day, stole more of Morrie’s motor functions. With startling vulnerability, Morrie shared his mental processes as he faced a painful and slow death. When Morrie would wake up in the morning, he often felt self-pity overwhelm his mind. His response: “I give myself a good cry if I need it, but then I concentrate on all the good things in my life. On the people coming to see me. On the stories I’m going to hear.”[i]

Here’s the deal—we can’t help but feel self-pity now and then. Not all bad, it functions like anger, being the surface response to volumes of emotions and pain churning underneath. What really matters is what we do with self-pity. If I punch someone because of anger, I have made a wrong choice. If I drown my sorrows in beer because I’m overcome by self-pity, that won’t help. But if we do pushups when we are angry, or take a walk when filled with self -pity, it is not a big deal. We are moving on and will, hopefully, take the time to process the undercurrents at the next available opportunity. Feeling self-pity doesn’t mean we are horrible people. Maybe it just means we are facing quite a lot and might need some help to move on.

(Sorry if I made you think I was indulging in a sordid drinking binge at the local country bar. Unashamedly, I wanted to get your attention. The following story is unbelievable. Sometimes I still can’t believe it.)

With the bar on my right, I crossed the road, glanced down Klein Road, and continued to turn home, still carrying a cumbersome emotional backpack loaded with self-pity. As I headed down the hill toward the Dietrich farm, I felt a lightening. I felt God’s eye on me. If He takes care of the sparrows, surely, He is taking care of me (Matt. 6:26). Not trying to mentally convince myself of this theological point, I felt it in my spirit. I strode home with courage, and maybe a bit of resentful rebellion. “Okay, God. Can you prove it? I still feel alone, trapped in this body that can’t handle the amount of life I want to live.” Anger feels better than self-pity and depression. Anger feels more alive. (Maybe I should do some pushups!)

Later that very day, my mom and I headed to a Bible study at the new church my parents had started attending. I didn’t know people at the study or the church, especially anyone my age. The Bible study, while good because we pressed into God’s word, didn’t provide the social setting I longed for. The 20+ participants were all my mom’s age. “My mom has more friends than me,” I thought dismally. Anyways, everyone acted friendly and kind and welcomed me into the group, despite the age gap. I enjoyed the study and felt God’s words further lifting my spirit.

I returned a week later. The leader, Judy, immediately asked me to tell everyone my story. How did she know my story? I’d been away at college trying to establish a new identity not completely based on my past. Yet, it always felt easy to talk about myself (!), especially around kindly parental types. So, I launched into the well-practiced story of my spinal cord injury, the resulting paralysis, and the long recovery. I had given this story so often that I barely needed to think about it. “Yes, now I’m walking and going to college to be a therapist myself. I want to help other people as I have been helped by so many loving and patient therapists. I want to give people courage to live life again.” Yada, yada, yada. I’d told this all so many times.

This time the audience responded differently. Judy stood up and said she would like to introduce me to a couple. Mike and Gail Berryman were there, and they recognized me the previous week.

They had asked Judy about me after I left.

They thought they knew me.

They DID know me.

All along we believed there were no eyewitnesses to my fateful accident on January 19, 1992. We never really knew what had happened but could only assume that I smashed into something hard enough to shatter my spine. That is true. That did happen. On an old tire inner tube, with no way to control the course of direction down the icy, steep hill, my friend and I spun wildly, bouncing and heading toward tree line on the right. Gail and Mike related that my back smacked into a tree at about 5 feet high. Down I went face first into the snow. My brothers and friends found me unconscious. Someone ran to a neighboring house to call 911.

But Mike, a trained paramedic, got to my body before anyone else. Like a guardian angel, he protected me, scooped the snow away from my mouth so I could breathe, and made sure no one moved me until the ambulance arrived. The medic rescue team supported my neck and carried me up the hill on a stretcher. I ended up being transported to Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh in a helicopter life-flight, about 30 minutes after the impact. (Yeah for American emergency services!)  Mike and Gail prayed over my body as soon as they got to my side. Because they had just finished a course on intercessory prayer at the church, they knew what to do. The verse Isaiah 54:17 came to their mind, and they claimed it for me: “No weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed” (ESV).

Now, I don’t remember anything about this encounter, or the day of my accident, or the two operations on my spine. In this way, my story is hardly even my story.

As Mike and Gail told me a different version of my own “Miracle Girl” story, I listened with awe and wonder. This version of the story wasn’t the one I usually told — all about me and my hard work. This story featured some unexpected, yet very key players. They hadn’t even wanted to be on the hillside that day! Their kids had dragged them there, insisting that it was the perfect day for sledding. They happened to be at the bottom of the steep hill, close to where I landed, able to get to my inert body quickly. Somehow, they ended up taking my scarf home with them. They still had it and prayed for me over the years whenever the scarf reminded them of me and my accident.

Indeed, God’s eye is on the sparrow. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care” (Matthew 10:29, NIV).

Suddenly, this middle-aged couple became an important part of my life. They saw my accident firsthand and were at my body before anyone else. You could say they “beheld” my brokenness and knew Who to take that crumpled, lifeless body to. I would never have known them or the role they played if not for that “chance” meeting at the Bible study. It could very reasonably be said that I’m walking because they protected my body and let no one move me. No one knew that I’d be spending the next year in rehabilitation learning to move again, but in that liminal space when I was completely helpless, I had guardians.  

Why did God introduce me to Mike and Gail at this time, seven whole years after my accident? I believe that God used this tremendous meeting to fortify my spirit and assure me of His presence…His close presence the moment when my body, life, and dreams shattered. Not long after this, my second accident occurred — a much more painful one that injured the knee of my strong leg and further reduced my ability to walk. For a long, bitter season ahead of me, I would only be able to dream of getting to the bar and back. Unfortunately, trauma compounds and my emotions were headed for a crazy tailspin. With more rehab, I would once again need to learn to walk one step at a time. However, after this rehabilitation, I would end up in India!

I have yet to write about this second accident. I hesitate because I’m beginning to understand that we can’t really ever write the whole story. There are many unknown perspectives.

And that, my friends, is a good thing.

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[i] Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie, 57.

References:

Albom, Mitch. 1997. Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s

Greatest Lesson. New York: Broadway Books.