I’m Still Alive!

I remember waking up and feeling very groggy (I was on morphine).  My wife told that I had been in an accident, had been in a coma for 3 weeks, and 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 bike when a speeding car hit my perpendicularly, and sent me flying in the air about 30 feet high (about 3 stories high).  The driver (from his 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 broken, and several on my left side, my lings were punctured and collapsed, a tube on each side was inserted into my lungs to drain out the blood and fluid, my pelvis broken, my collar bone and shoulder blade broken, 3 vertebrae broken, a tube was inserted in my skull to drain out the blood, and I picked up an e coli bacteria infection in the hospital.  I was broken. 
 
HASHEM SAVED ME, AND I SURVIVED AND FULLY RECOVERED. 
 
After 5 months of stays in 2 hospitals and a nursing home, I came home in a lot of pain.  One and a half years later had another child, and 2 years later graduated from a master’s program that I was in the middle of, 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, so she organized and called every school on the East coast of the U.S. to have them pray for me, say tehillim, and gave them my name.  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 3 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 4 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 at the best thing that had ever happened to me.  Some examples: The accident gave me a perspective on suffering, and helped me to become a good listener and a good therapist.  Hashem woke me up, 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 me least intrusive.  The accident was a time to take stock and reevaluate my path and goals.  Hashem showed me in the realest way that He is in charge and 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