Accident Forgiveness

"It's not what happens to you that's important. It's what you do when that disaster comes that makes all the difference in the world."  ~Kathryn Kuhlman
 

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"Come down Grand."
"I had an accident."

"Are you okay?"

"I am. But I'm not sure about everybody else."

What began as a routine evening had just turned into a parent's nightmare. And I was the parent.

Our seventeen-year-old son had just left the house to go across town to eat homemade ice-cream with his cross country buddies. He had four friends with him in his late-model 4-Runner.

That night involved hospitals, tornadoes, and a trip to Iowa City. Four walked away with minor injuries. One was taken by ambulance to the university hospital a couple of hours away for surgery. Her hand had hit the pavement and would be disfigured for life.

Her response would speak life or death into my son's broken and guilt-ridden heart.

After her first of several surgeries to clean the wound of glass fragments and road gravel, her first words to our son were, "You know we will have to be best friends from now on." To me she said, "I'm not mad."

That choice makes her a hero in my book.