I met the man who would become my husband when we were still teenagers, back when the future felt wide open and uncomplicated. We were seniors in high school, old enough to believe our feelings were serious and young enough to think love alone could carry us anywhere. We talked about college campuses we had never seen, tiny apartments with unreliable plumbing, and careers we barely understood. Everything felt possible.
He was my first love. I was his. When he smiled at me across the cafeteria, the world felt steady and safe, as if nothing truly bad could happen as long as we stayed together.
Then, just days before Christmas, everything changed.
He was driving to visit his grandparents on a snowy evening. There was black ice on the road, a truck that could not slow down in time, and a moment that altered the rest of our lives. The details were hazy, but the outcome was not.
The accident left him unable to use his legs.
I remember the hospital vividly. The sharp, clean smell. The steady rhythm of machines. The way his hand trembled when I held it, like his body was still trying to understand what had happened. When the doctor explained his condition, the words felt unreal, like they were meant for someone else’s life, not ours.
“He will not walk again.”
I was still trying to absorb that sentence when my parents arrived.
