I Was Lost, Now I'm Found

If you know me personally, or if you read my book, Telling Hands, you are aware of the near fatal car accident I was in when I was a teenager.  If you haven't read it, go ahead and do yourself a favor and get a copy. In the last chapter, I say:

"I have learned many things about myself now that I am thirty-two, marking the sixteenth anniversary of my near-fatal car accident when I was just sixteen."

That day was actually a couple weeks ago, on Thanksgiving Day of this year. Driving the same route, to eat the same Thanksgiving Dinner with my family, crossing the same Fateful Crossroads, I looked more than twice at the intersection.

I informed my friends on facebook that I had arrived at my Grandmother's house this year. It felt good, and the meal was as delicious as it ever has been. We managed to get by without any drama, which is always a plus when you go home to see family.

A couple days later, I received an email. It was from someone that had heard of my book, and was surprised to see that I was alive. His last memory of me was lying in a pool of my own blood, just moments after the wreck. After catching up a little, he sent me his account of the event. I sobbed as I read his words. He gave me permission to share them with you.

"For some reason that is a bad location, and there are wrecks there all the time. I remember I was going back into the store from pumping gas (we had to pump gas for people back then) and I heard the tire and the loud boom. I turned around and the second I saw the little grey Pontiac Sunfire I knew right then it was you. I ran out as fast as I could and there were screeching tires and cars everywhere. As I got to your car you were in the floor board of the car with blood everywhere. For some reason I remember seeing a grey Fyffe hoodie in the car as well. I thought you were dead. I tried to open the car door and it wouldn't open. Then someone grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back and I took one last look at you and then the car was swarmed with people. I stayed back because I can't handle seeing that, especially someone I knew. The police and ambulance got there and made everyone stay back. I tried forever to find out what I could about you but no one knew anything. I left that job and have never forgotten the sight of you in that car that day. Like I said I apologize if this freaks you out."

This old friend of mine, whom, due the accident, I can only barely remember, thought I was dead. For sixteen years, he had this image of me in his head. I was lost. Lost to myself, and most certainly lost to him. In the writing of the story, I found myself, and in the sharing of it, he found me. We will, without a doubt, stay in touch this time.

I was lost, but now I am found.

Jamie Godwin Brooks
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KRVTJ9K

Fateful Crossroads