Same day, different time

It was eleven years ago.

Wednesday January 14, [1998] 12:30 a.m. [This is taken from an e-mail I received...]

Danny, his best friend Dave, and a friend Mary were coming back from a movie [Good Will Hunting] when a 15-year-old, who had stolen a van and was drunk, ran a red light, and hit the side of Danny's car [a tiny little Chevy Chevette, I remember seeing a picture of the car on the news, it did not stand a chance with that van]. There were 2 people in the van. After the accident, both kids ran, later the driver came back. The passenger in the van has not been located, yet.

All three of the people in Danny's car were trapped and were cut out by the Jaws of Life. Everyone in his vehicle had his or her seat belts on. Danny's best friend died at the scene. The girl in the back seat was in fair condition with a broken leg. Danny was airlifted to Denver General Hospital by the Flight for Life; he was in critical condition and in a coma. At the hospital it was determined that he had no internal organ injuries. He had some swelling in his brain, his left leg and pelvis area were broken. The left side of his face was damaged. The area around his left eye socket is damaged and will have to be set and some cosmetic surgery will be required...

And on it went. For weeks. The updates, the tears shed, the pain felt, the coma, the gradual improvements. Life marched on. He missed his 21st birthday, and I just continued to miss him.

I found out on the afternoon of the 14th. I was leaving the training room, having just finished volleyball practice and two of my sorority sisters and former teammates walked in. We all had spent the majority of the summer hanging out with Dan and his friends, so they knew him and knew how I felt about him. My mom had been trying to find me, and called them to help track me down. They went with me to the hospital, where we sat and I went numb.

Danny, or Dan the Man as he was known in my family and among my friends, was one of my closest friends. True, I started out hating him, but who could blame me? He had replaced me in the neighborhood football and baseball games with the boys when he arrived in the fifth grade. That little school girl "hatred" turned into a crush, and over the years developed into a really good, really strong friendship.

We went through all the trials and tribulations of the awkward teenage years, we "went out" once, briefly, for about a week. Mostly because I got all awkward and that thought it would be better if we were just friends. So we stayed just friends for many years following that.

But I always adored my friend. Even when we went off to college, we remained really close. We both went to schools in Denver and saw each other frequently. There was part of me that always thought someday I'd be Mrs. Dan the Man. And when I got the news of the accident, my heart shattered and my world just seemed to dissolve.

When I was home for the holidays last month, we helped my parents clean out the clutter in the basement. A lot of what we found were relics from growing up. In a box of old college stuff, I found a journal. It was a journal I started keeping a week after Dan's accident. It has only a handful of entries--all quite dramatic as my little 20-year-old self tried to make sense of what was going on, yet all full of the genuine love and the grief I was feeling at the time. I was a wreck. During the day I'd wander around like a zombie and at night I'd just cry. I found consolation in visiting him in the ICU, and as he gradually improved in the rehabilitation hospital.

Finding that journal was a real jolt to my system; it stirred up thoughts and emotions that had gotten a little dusty. It also reminded me of a six page letter I wrote him on the night of the 14th, eleven years ago. I poured my heart into that letter and writing it was the only thing that I could do to cope with the initial shock of it all. Everything I said in that letter I meant at the time, but I was also 20, and thought I knew everything. Thought I knew all life had in store. I wrote that letter and stuck it in an envelope to give to his parents to have and to give to him (but because I wanted to be sure I had that letter saved for myself, I photocopied it first).

After the wounds healed, and Dan the Man woke up from his coma, life began to solidify. He had suffered a massive head injury, and almost all of the medical professionals said he'd never fully recover, he'd certainly never finish his degree and have a "normal" life. But Dan is a fighter, and although it took a little bit longer, he did graduate from college. And he has a job, and his own place, and a great life. He's amazing and a hero, a true testament to the human spirit and courage and hope. And that makes what I'm about to admit so painful to me.

While Dan has been able to accomplish so much more than the doctors and the naysayers ever thought he would, he's done so as a Dan who is different than the Dan I knew and loved. I feel like an incredible jerk even admitting to this. I spent a very long time pissed off at the drunk 15-year-olds that took the Dan I knew away, forever. And I probably will always resent them a little bit, and maybe it was all part of the universe's plan, but that doesn't mean I have to like it all the time. In the journal and in the letter I wrote, I swore that I would be by Dan's side forever. That I would love him forever. And that's not to say that I'm not and I don't, I do love him and admire him, but not in the way that I meant when I wrote those words. And because of that, there's a little part of me that feels guilt whenever I see him and his family. Because surely, he and his family had read that letter and they all know that 20-year-old me and 31-year-old me aren't necessarily on the same page. And we all know that what you think and feel at 20 does not necessarily mean you are going to think and feel that way forever. But that doesn't assuage the pain when I start to wonder, if this had not have happened to him would what I said and felt at 20 still ring true today? Slippery slope playing "what if?"

When I returned to Seattle, I went for my copy of the letter just to remind myself of what exactly I wrote, and I discovered that I never gave his parents the letter. I felt momentarily relieved, it meant that nobody knew what 20-year-old me had professed (and ultimately, but not maliciously, had gone back on). But that relief has been only temporary. After reading parts of that letter, I'm definitely glad I have the only copies, but if there was one lesson I should have learned from all that Dan went through it was that you should seize the day. That you never know if you're going to have a second chance to let someone know how much they mean to you. The fact that I have the only copies of that letter remind me that I may not have fully embraced the lesson from that painful but important experience.

While I was re-reading the letter, I thought about posting it--really seizing the day there. But there's something that's just too personal, too emotional, too raw. Instead, here's an excerpt that just serves as a good note to self, then, now, and probably throughout my life:

"For a year now I've been dying to tell you this. Every time I got the nerve up to tell you, I would back down at the last minute. I kept putting it off until the next time I'd see you, never realizing it might be the last.

I'm so lucky that I have this chance to tell you how I feel. My heart would have broken if you never knew my true feelings. Oh, God, I was so worried, so paralyzed with pain, agony, and loss. But I got my second chance and I could not let it pass me."

Note to self: Don't let those moments--whatever they are, whenever they happen, and whomever they involve--pass you.