A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words - Or More!

Yesterday I saw a photo that made a big impression on me and has been in my mind for most of two days now. The photo showed a woman standing outside next to her 13 year old son. The son is smiling and he is at least 6 inches taller than his mother. The mother is smiling too. I saw this remarkable photo at the funeral wake of the mother. I've known her for almost 19 years. I didn't know her well. I only saw her or talked to her on the phone a handful of times each year. She was very positive and she was full of grace. I work with her son - the one who was also in the photo. I have known him for 19 years. I speak to him probably every working day and sometimes we talk at length. He is a very nice man, a real gentleman. When he was 13 he had an accident - soon after that photo was taken. He was walking on the side of the road. A drunk driver struck him. He had a severe head injury. He was in a coma for months. He came out of the coma and his family took him home to care for him. He uses a wheelchair most of the time. Because of the head injury he has little short term memory. In 95% of our conversations he tells me he used to live on xxx street in xxx city and now he lives on xxx street in xxx city. He's lived there for over 20 years but to him it's new. He'll repeat that story many times every hour. He can't recognize his parents sometimes because they don't look like they did in 1976. He repeats himself over and over but there is no use in getting frustrated by it because he honestly cannot remember telling you before. After 12 years of telling him my name he began to remember it, especially if I gave him my first name. He remembers it because he thinks it's funny. If you say both my names quickly, it sounds like Suzuki - another brand of motorcycle. Every time he says it he thinks he's making a funny joke for the very first time. He raises his arms and twists his wrists like he is gunning up the motor on a bike. He had a Kawasaki dirt bike. In fact he still has it. His family had it restored and it's sitting in the shed. This guy is a wonderful man. He's very hard working and he has a 13 year old's black and white sense of justice. He has a happy life. And in my head I knew he had an accident and I knew his life took a different path because of the accident. But my heart didn't understand until I saw that photo of him standing outside with his proud mother. What kind of life would he have now if not for that drunk driver? Would he be in the sheet rock business like the other men in his family? How would his mother's life have been different? How about his father and his brother? If I had a child in an accident such as his, would I be as positive and graceful as his mother?