I’m Still Alive!

I remember waking up and feeling very groggy (I was on morphine).  My wife told me that I had been in an accident, had been in a coma for three weeks, that I was in the hospital, and that everything was going to be fine.  I thought to myself, “Boy, is she wrong.  I only had some bad dreams.”  I spent the next several months putting the pieces together of the story that I lived through, but never knew first hand because I was unconscious.
 
They told me that I had been riding my bicycle when a speeding car hit me sideways and sent me flying in the air about 30 feet (about three stories high).  The driver (from the description was a frum Jew, wearing black clothes and a black hat, middle aged, white, with a beard) got out of the car to look at me, but soon drove off.  No one got his license plate and he was never caught.  The next Yom Kippur I forgive him with a full heart. 
 
No one expected me to live for more than a few days.  My injuries: all the ribs on my right side and several on my left side were broken; my lungs were punctured and collapsed, so a tube was inserted on each side of my chest to drain out the blood and fluid; my pelvis, collar bone, and shoulder blades were broken; three vertebrae were broken; a tube was inserted in my skull to drain out the blood. I picked up an E. coli bacterial infection in the hospital.  I was broken. 
 
HASHEM SAVED ME, AND I SURVIVED AND FULLY RECOVERED. 
 
After five months of stays in two hospitals and a nursing home, I came home in a lot of pain.  One and a half years later, we had another child. Two years later, I graduated from a master’s program and began working full-time listening to people’s problems.
 
What facilitated my recovery?  I can share some ideas: 
 
PRAYER: A family friend who broke her leg and could only come to see me once, wanted to do something. She organized and called every school on the East coast of the U.S. gave them my name to have them pray for me and say Tehillim.  She did the same with as many schools in Israel and the rest of the U.S. as she could.  My shul also organized that someone would be by my side around the clock, saying Tehillim and praying, for the entire three weeks of my coma until I woke up. 
 
CHARITY: We were not wealthy by far.  I was a student and had just gone back to school.  However, my wife’s first thought and action was to give a considerable amount to charity. 
 
ACCEPTANCE OF HASHEM’S DECREES: I had not yet discovered Rabbi Shalom Arush’s books (which was four years later), and I didn’t know yet the secret of gratitude.  However, I accepted with complete faith whatever Hashem gave me.  I complained once after 4 1/2 months because the pain was so constant, but then asked forgiveness for not accepting His decrees.  Soon later, though, I did reach GRATITUDE by looking for all the benefits that came out of these circumstances.  I began to honestly see the accident as the best thing that had ever happened to me.  Some examples: The accident gave me a perspective on suffering. It helped me to become a good listener and a good therapist.  Hashem woke me up and made me look at what I was doing wrong in my life.  He scheduled my accident at the perfect time in my life when it would be least intrusive.  The accident was a time to take stock and reevaluate my path and goals.  Hashem showed me in the most real way that He is in charge and that I am at His absolute mercy every second.  For these and many other reasons, it was and continues to be very good for me.
 

I love my life now, no matter how hard it is.  I love life and all its gifts.  I love Hashem.  I love inspiring people and teaching emuna.  I HOPE I HAVE INSPIRED YOU, TOO!
 
Kalman Canant