Walking With Grace

Grace: Hi everyone! Our rollercoaster ride over the past few weeks reminded me of someone who’s never showed up on the blog: the man who hit me. The man who hit me and didn’t even say “I’m sorry.”

My first clear thought about this man came in the rehab hospital. The night nurse was putting me to bed, but she hesitated before pouring out some pills. “Are you mad?” she said. I thought she meant about the accident in general, so I gave her my standard reply. “Not really…I mean, how could I be mad? I’m alive when I should be dead!” She laughed. “No, not about that…are you mad at the guy who hit you?” That made me stop and think. (Thinking took a lot longer back then.) “No,” I said finally. “I think I just feel bad for him. I’d hate to live the rest of my life knowing I had done this.”

She probably thought I was drugged, but what I said was true. I still feel truly sorry for him. Ruining someone’s life is a terrible ghost to haunt you. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I don’t want that man to get hurt. (I don’t want him dead or hit by a car in case you’re wondering!) I definitely don’t want him to go to Hell.

So what do I want?

I’ve thought about this a lot and come up with two big wishes:

1. That he would encounter God through Jesus before the end of his life. Facing a just and angry God with the pain of our accident on his hands would be a terrifying, terrifying fate.
2. I don’t want him punished “for real” in this life or the next, but I would love to do one thing to him. I want to make him watch one critical day – just one day – of our post-accident lives. It could be me way back in ICU that first night when I was supposed to die. It could be me in therapy trying so hard to catch up to a bunch of amputee patients. It could be me in the hospital during any one of my stays in the past seven months, having seizure after seizure after seizure. I’d love for him to have to turn around and look Mom and Dad and Ivan in the eye during one of those moments and see their fear and pain and exhaustion. I’d love for him to be with us just one day and think “I did this.”

Yeah I have to admit it would feel pretty great if someone could make wish #2 come true. Thankfully for the man who hit me, they can’t. But my wish #1 is still my top wish for him. The best part is that it could come true. He really could find Jesus one day and be forgiven. But in the meantime, whatever happens…I still feel really, really sorry for him.

P.S. This is all I’m at liberty to share at the moment. There may be a Part 2 at some point in the future where we can share more. But for now, thanks for your patience!

Ivan: I won’t write too much for now, but I just wanted to add two things. First, there is a legal side to this accident that Grace and I can’t elaborate on just yet. However, Grace and I can say that we have received no settlement from the offending party and most likely will not. Second, as much pain as this person has caused us, and as great as his need for God’s forgiveness is, Grace and I are reminded that we also need God’s forgiveness for our sins. The Bible is clear that everyone needs forgiveness, but it also gives a clear path to forgiveness through Jesus. Thank you all for your love and support!

This is actually not a happy post, but I promise to end with a silly Monty Python clip so we all feel better. Hang in there!

Two Sundays ago I ate a Costco salad and got sick. Food poisoning is annoying but pretty low key in the grand scope of life…unless you’re me. An upset tummy led to a low grade fever…which led to a giant seizure spike. Over the course of the week I had 31 seizures. Breaking my previous record for number of seizures in one week felt pretty awful. But wait, there’s more!

This past Sunday I got much worse, at which point my family freaked out and drove me to the Redwood City ER. It’s 30 minutes away, but that’s the only Kaiser center in our area equipped to treat my type of case. I had 15 seizures before I got checked into the ER, and fit in 23 more before I made it to my neuro hospital room that night. In case you’re bad at math (which I totally am!), that’s 38 seizures in one day. Which makes 69 for the whole week. Ouch.

The next morning (Monday) the neurologist decided to run a 24-hour EEG to see if anything had changed in my brain since my last Redwood City stay in December. At this point I was much more stable. Being hooked up to an EEG machine makes me look like this:

I had a few seizures Monday, but at least I was already feeling better.

That basically summarizes my Monday. On Tuesday afternoon the neurologist analyzed my EEG Tuesday and didn’t read any changes since my December EEG. That’s actually a praise since we don’t want anything else to be wrong with my brain. But we also know that food poisoning is really, really terrible for me, since it seems to mess with how my body absorbs my regular seizure meds.

PS. I always think I’m done with hospital posts, but then…?

PPS. Sorry Costco! I still ❤ you mostly. Just not your salads.

Today is a “swimming date” for me and Ivan. Yes, I do actually schedule swimming dates. My first reason for a schedule is I’m semi-albino (okay not really but it feels like it!). Selecting warm yet cloudy-ish times of day is a must. My second reason is sunscreen. Lots and lots of sunscreen. Ivan’s newest gig is sunscreen assistant to an (extremely white) white girl since my left hand needs some back up. Sunscreening any type of girl is not a skill he perfected as a bachelor. My third reason is SWIMMING! Yay!!! I’ve loved swimming ever since I was a kid, and now it does triple duty by engaging my left hand, helping me with cardio, and working out my legs without irritating the hardware.

But there’s a fourth reason I swim with Ivan. Why? I’m strong enough and smart enough and recovered enough to handle the whole swimming thing. Exercising solo is cathartic. for a lot of people. But now I need seizure as well as sunscreen back up, so Ivan’s more than a want. He’s a need. (Still super cool since he’s my husband! ❤ ) You can keep reading…I won’t beat the seizure “dead horse” again in case you’re nervous about that! 🙂

Ivan and I are in the middle of discussing what our newest life operating system should look like. (If we were Apple this would be iLife 3.0 – at least!) . I say “middle” because we’re young and inexperienced, and who knows? This could be a life-long conversation. On the bright side, conversing is great since you get to know the other person better!

Up to this point we’ve worked under the assumption I’d arrive at independence someday. Now, we understand that some of my formerly “temporary” dependence is here to stay. I don’t have a driver’s license. I shouldn’t go anywhere by myself. Naps will always be a thing. What’s more, we need some permanent social smarts to navigate events that might have triggers tucked away somewhere  (we’d thought that level of social vigilance would go away after a bit.) Ivan will stay shopping master because he can drive and handle store lights!

None of this dependence has to be bad if we decide to call it something more positive. It’s challenging, it’s different…and it definitely requires extra brain power for Ivan to help me navigate each day wisely. We’re deep into the “extra brain power” phase now, but I’m confident God will give us (and Ivan in particular) the requested smarts to make iLife 3.0 a good operating system. He doesn’t bring any update without a way to work through it eventually.

It’s a little weird to write a dependence post just before Independence Day. But how do you define independence? For me, true independence is deciding what to call something, on your own, no matter what surrounds you. That’s what our founding fathers did. They decided to think on their own even though British Imperialism surrounded them. Who knows where we’d be today if they hadn’t done some independent thinking? The best part is that God’s given every single one of us the chance to think independently, whether or not you have an iLife update on its way. Here’s to taking Him up on His offer!

Today I took two naps. I would usually feel extremely guilty about this, since even after the accident I’ve felt like my number one goal was to do the “old me” ASAP. My last post shared how my first attempt at diving back into closer (notice how I said “closer”!) to a 25-year old activity level wasn’t working out so well.

Just to recap, within the space of two weeks Ivan had taken me to the Perlman concert, we’d tried go go visit his parents in Concord, we’d watched the cat and the condo while my family were in Europe, I’d gone out with some friends, and I’d still kept up with therapy maintenance and chores at home. Oh, and tried church. I admit that’s not quite up to what you might expect for someone my age, but it’s a whole lot closer than what I’ve attempted so far.

And then I relapsed into the worst seizure frequency since March. Not so good. Since I woke up having seizures one day last week without a light trigger, my doctor decided that fatigue in and of itself was a trigger (we’d just thought that it lowered my resistance to light triggers but wasn’t its own trigger). So, now I’m on an imposed rest streak until we get back to our goal of 1-2 seizures a week.

I hate resting. When I was young, Mom often had to make me lie down and rest when I was sick – especially when violin and school were involved. One time I pushed through soloing with an orchestra and attending the post-concert reception while I was sick…and then was diagnosed with strep throat the next day. I feel like I was born doing things. And I’ve developed this mindset where I have to be doing stuff (usually introverted stuff like reading or writing or music, but still stuff) to be happy. Doing stuff wears out any brain, but now especially mine.

One nap a day has been necessary since I did have two strokes, but two naps a day feels decadent and a waste of time. I mean, I could be hanging with Ivan, reading, playing with Daisy, practicing Spanish. The old me would have been outraged at such a waste of time.

I think God is teaching me two things: 1) is to be kinder to myself and not believe that my worth is solely based on what (or how many whats!) I can produce in a day, and 2) is to be much, much gentler in how I think about other people. I did, and unfortunately do, typically assume other people should be just like me. As in, if I can do this much in a day  (especially if the disabled me somehow grinds out this much in a day), so should everyone else. The truth is I don’t know everyone else. I don’t know everything they’re going through right now. I don’t know everything they’ve gone through before. I obviously don’t have a job, and I have no idea what some of those super stressful jobs (or any job with kids!) can take out of a person. I really have no idea.

So if I have to stop and take two naps a day and limit all my other activities to twenty minute chunks, fine. And for everyone else who stops and has “nothing” time occasionally just to take care of yourself, I think that’s fine too.

This weekend Mom, Dad, and Anna return from Europe. Anna started saving up for the trip last year as a post-graduation extravaganza and I’m SO glad she (and Mom and Dad) ventured forth. She totally deserves her first time “abroad.” 🙂

This trip was a big step for all of us since Ivan and I haven’t been solo since last August. Honestly, it probably wasn’t safe for us to even think about testing our “solo” skills until mid-April. Praise God that all these dates lined up at the last minute! The Europe story is copyrighted to Mom, Dad, and Anna, but I CAN tell y’all how our solo experiment turned out.

What we tried: Both of us dealt with schedule changes and extra responsibility (Mom and Dad have a condo and a cat), Ivan still worked during Week 1 of Europe, and I threw in some extra outings since it’s June and who doesn’t want early-summer fun?

What actually happened: We saw some interesting epileptic and TBI developments with the raised activity level. This felt weird at first, but I think God sent it early so we can plan for a fun AND safe summer. Here’s a breakdown of what we saw.

• Epilepsy: My seizure frequency went way high (I even started clustering again), since fatigue makes my brain more susceptible to triggers. We still made it to church one week out of two (any church is a yay!), but we had to turn around on our way to visit Ivan’s family since I started having seizures on the freeway (yikes for everyone involved).
• Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): This is one of those things I always forget to plan for until it starts acting up, but unfortunately TBI also gets irritated by over-activity. There were a few days in there when I reverted back to some REALLY old deficits…usually because I couldn’t remember what we were supposed to do that day, much less figure out the order we should do it in. I ended up staying in the car for some of our outings, and got so noise-sensitive again that I wore earplugs to go feed my parents’ cat. That’s when ya know…

We certainly had our share of fun moments, though! Ivan got some extra chill time with my parents’ grand piano, I met up with a couple of church friends during some of my good days, and Ivan and I inaugurated the first swim of the summer. For the record, I can swim just as well as I did before the accident. (Including longer/faster than some people who shall remain nameless.)

Now what?? We’re looking forward to a great summer. 🙂 Thankfully we have a heads-up to count in lots of rest days, too, since happy brain = happy all of us. Quality is always better than quantity…and you can bet we’re aiming pretty high on the “quality” level.

As always, Ivan wins a gold medal for keeping up with me.

Hi all, long time no see! Time for a quick update and some thoughts. Recently we’ve had a higher number of seizures, which is always difficult to deal with. It’s hard for Grace to go through that, and it’s hard for me to watch her go through that. But she keeps battling, and I’ll keep trying to help her as best as I can.

I once heard that difficult times can either drive people away from God or point them toward Him. For my part (and Grace’s), I have come to rely on God more and more as trials keep coming. A year and a half ago, when the accident happened, I learned very quickly what it felt like to not be “in control.” So many of the things we usually take for granted—abilities, opportunities, time, energy, and other resources—are actually gifts from God which are His to give and take away. In fact, it’s all His to give or take away. We are merely stewards.

I have also realized more and more how transient our life on earth is. Man is but a breath, here today and gone tomorrow; eternity is long. Selfishly, I almost wish that Grace and I could be in Heaven already. But I am reminded that God has a purpose for every person during their earthly journey: namely, to enjoy and glorify Him and help others discover Him for themselves! How amazing is it that that is God’s ultimate desire—He loves us that much!

So we persevere! Grace and I want you all to know that we are always grateful for your love, prayers, and support, and that we pray for you all too, as much as we are able. All of us bear burdens of varying sorts and daily encounter people carrying their own loads. But “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.” (Psalm 68:19)

P.S.: I want to specifically thank my family, my parents and two brothers, for their support for me and Grace throughout the past year and a half. They have prayed for us unceasingly, and I know I can always turn to them for love and support. Back in December 2016, my dad spent multiple nights in the hospital staying up all night to watch Grace so that I could get some rest. He himself had to pass other nights trying to “sleep” on hospital lobby chairs. My brother Eric drove down to Riverside from Fresno the day right after the accident and encouraged me continually. Mom, Dad, Eric and Joey, thank you, I love you all, God bless you always!

It would be super cool to write about Itzhak Perlman every week. Alas, such is not my life. Changing the subject…

Dealing with my final epilepsy prognosis is convoluted. Most personal pondering has taken place on the treadmill since there’s NOTHING to do except move my legs, but that’s beside the point. We’ve faced a lot of trials in the past 18 months and this one’s bugged me and Ivan more than many…probably because it’s permanent. We’ve received many loving admonitions recently: everything from “God often uses doctors to give us His final answer” to “Just keep praying for a miracle!”…and some suggestions that fall in between.

My heart naturally gravitated to the first opinion but I felt guilty whenever the miracle suggestion came up. Was it wrong to “stuff” God into a medical box? But He did also create medicine. I didn’t have a good answer.

Today God showed me that even if both sides are plausible, neither is the final answer. It takes two stories to explain.

First, we find a beautiful story in John 9 about Jesus healing a 40-year-old man who was blind from birth. It would be great if you look it up, but if not here’s the Cliff Notes edition 🙂 . I’m sure the blind man resigned himself to being blind decades earlier, and then wham! He could see. Jesus healed him but the crowd was so thick the man didn’t see who had done it. A couple of days later, though, Jesus found the man. After explaining He had healed him, Jesus gave a simple command: “Follow Me.”

Pretty inspirational for the miracle side, huh? But there’s also a darker story too.

In John 21 (Cliff Notes again) Peter is walking and talking with Jesus and promises to keep following Him even after Jesus returns to heaven. Jesus responds with: “Will you really do that? If you do, it involves the same kind of death I died.” I think Peter was pretty dismayed since he turned around and pointed to another disciple. “What about him?” Misery loves company. But Jesus didn’t go down that rabbit trail. “Even if that man lived forever, it wouldn’t matter. You follow me.” For the record, Peter did…and he was later crucified for it.

As much as one story is glorious and the other unsettling, the outcome isn’t the point of either. The point is Jesus wants followers. I’m pretty sure I can rule out crucifixion since most countries don’t do that, but I can’t rule out either a happy ending or a sad one. I also shouldn’t waste time fixating on which one I’ll get. Whether or not my epilepsy changes, my (and every believer’s) job is to follow Jesus no matter what. I need a whole lot of spiritual help getting better at that. And I still have a whole lifetime (and prayer lifetime) to work on that…seizures or not.

Do you remember who you wanted to be when you were 9 years old? Superman? Barbie? I’m not sure what age bracket you fall in so I’ll leave it at that. Honestly, I don’t even know who kids my own age wanted to be. I was already swimming around “under the sea” with my violin. I was too busy to wonder who the kids “on land” liked. But I DEFINITELY knew who I wanted to be. I wanted to be Itzhak Perlman, perhaps the most accomplished violinist of our time. Please tell me you’ve heard of him. Even if not, you’ve definitely heard him play if you ever watched Schindler’s List. My awesome early violin teacher (Shout out to Beth Elliott ❤ ) lent me a VHS of him playing a concert when I was 9, and I was hooked. Unfortunately YouTube and iTunes didn’t exist, but I scrounged around to borrow CDs of him whenever I could.

My fixation sparked a quest to figure out how to  be just like him. Obviously, step 1 was to go to Juilliard. I knew he taught violin there. When I was 10, I looked up their audition requirements and made a list of all the pieces I needed to learn to audition. I checked them off one by one as the years passed. Step 2 was to go to a real concert and hear him in person. Mr. Perlman finally scheduled a concert in our area when I was 13-ish. He sells out everywhere, but my middle school violin teacher came to the rescue (thanks, Yuliya Smead! ❤ ).  Somehow Mom bought 2 tickets, and I was beyond myself with excitement. Until he canceled the concert. He’d experienced a death in the family so it was impossible to be angry. But I knew I probably wouldn’t see him again unless I left Wisconsin (very rarely do famous classical violinists book tour stops there).

Fast-forward to my time at Eastman. ( It’s a rival school to Juilliard.) When I was 16, I’d found an Eastman professor whom I admired so much that I had to learn from him, whatever it cost. But I hoped I’d still find a way to Itzhak Perlman, too. Sure enough, he made a visit during my freshman year. That concert made much more sense than the Wisconsin one since Eastman is such a well-known music school. My dream would come true this time for sure! Nope. His tickets started at $90. The box office workers barely concealed their contempt for all my questions. Was there a student rate? No. What about rush tickets? No. Could I hang around just in case someone no-showed? The lady’s glare told me it was time to go. Insult was added to my injury since Mr. Perlman performed in Kodak Theater. I played school orchestra rehearsals there every single day, and concerts once a month too. Now he was on that very stage, shining under the same warm golden stage lights, while I was shivering in the cold marble hall outside. The marble was sound-proof.

Seven years later, I live in San Jose. Can you guess who just played with the San Francisco Symphony? Can you guess who went? Yes and Yes!!! This was perhaps one of the most ill-advised gambles we’ve made so far, but I just HAD to go. I’d known about the concert since last fall, and been saving and planning ever since. You’d think the epilepsy explosion would have dissuaded me, but no. I didn’t care how much medication, blood tests, whatever. I was going to get better by May so I could go. A semi-unbalanced obsession with that concert tantalized – but probably also motivated – me as I fought through another brutal wave of recovery. Discovering that we’d reached the end of the medication road crushed some goals for me.  But I was going to get to that concert somehow. Playing my own concerts got taken from me, but there was no way that Perlman performance was going anywhere. I didn’t even care how many seizures I might have right as Ivan rolled my travel chair into the concert hall. Itzhak or bust!

So what happened?? Yes, I had a regrettably large number of seizures in the lobby, yes Ivan gave me the rescue drug, and yes, Ivan wanted us to go home. I didn’t care. 16 years of waiting was enough. An usher helped Ivan wheel me into my handicap spot and the lights went down. Mr. Perlman rolled out – in a wheelchair. I knew he had health problems throughout his life, but I wasn’t sure how often he performed in a wheelchair. His vulnerable entrance sent shivers down my spine given how hard I’d struggled just to get in the hall that afternoon. Mr. Perlman’s first piece was the perfection I’d imagined it would be. And then my heart skipped a giant beat. He was conducting the second piece himself, but I’d assumed he would stay in his chair. Not so. He turned to the regular conducting podium. That podium was almost four feet high, complete with large steps to reach the music stand on top. Mr. Perlman dragged himself upright so unsteadily that I wondered if he’d fall then and there. Orchestra members flinched…and I think everyone in the audience wanted someone, anyone to lend him a hand. Except for Mr. Perlman, apparently. He grabbed a pair of crutches before stubbornly twisting, wobbling, and hopping his way upward. There was a final, dangerous  sway even as he sat down in the chair. After a cursory bow to acknowledge thunderous applause for his unprecedented climb, he raised his hands and began milking a marvelous orchestral performance. I only had the strength to stay a few more minutes but I’d seen enough. My Superman is super in more ways than one. I’ve never felt more inspired in my entire life.

PS. It’s significant that my first performance as a soloist with a grown-up orchestra was the theme from Schindler’s List. I think I was 12 or 13 at the time, and I remember listening to Perlman over and over again as I practiced. Since then I’ve lost track of the number of times I performed that piece…with or without an orchestra. If you’re curious, you can check out this video of me and Ivan performing a contemporary version just a few months before the accident. Throughout the years I’ve always listened to recordings from my rehearsals and performances so I could compare them to, well…Perlman. Ya gotta keep learning from the best, right?

I can’t settle for sadness – even when I cross a less-than-ideal finish line (in my case seizure med improvement). Settling for sadness just isn’t the solution. But a positive outlook doesn’t make moving forward a great experience 24/7. I caught my breath when this picture popped up on my Facebook “memories” feed a couple of weeks ago. It was the last time I soloed with an orchestra. For those of you who aren’t into the whole classical music thing, soloing opportunities are very rare. Young musicians typically have to compete for an opportunity, and the winning pieces are complex (they’re created to showcase the both the performer’s artistry as well as their technique).

The concert above took place only a couple of weeks before I graduated. I was 22, had the best boyfriend ever, was still completely in love with violin in spite of my health science major, and would get engaged only a month later (okay, so I didn’t know that part yet!). Another chance to solo with an orchestra was the icing on a perfect graduation cake. (My piece was Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole if anyone’s wondering). While I forgot to ask Mom or Dad to record the performance, a friend must have snapped this pre-concert picture and posted it afterward. Hence why it popped up as a memory on my feed.

That beautiful memory of a beautiful afternoon actually hurt me. The photo hurt because it reminded me of a particular type of life experience that is gone for good. In the last 18-ish months, my main focus has been discovering the “new me” and what exciting things this new me is capable of. The journey has turned out to be a dichotomy so far. I’ll never leave the accident behind, so  it’s an integral part of the new me. But the accident also gave me most of the blessings I have now, so it’s fostered my new good side, weirdly enough. That picture is the old me, on the other hand. The old me is still part of who I am. I used to think it would be better to try forgetting the old me as I transitioned to the new me. It’s definitely easier to forget than to keep cycling through emotions as old memories pop up. But I was wrong. God gave me an exciting, messy, beautiful, first 23 years on earth. They’re worth hurting for sometimes, and definitely worth remembering all the time. I downloaded that picture. It’s staying on my iPhone for good.

It’s time for the last (but not least) post in my “Family Tribute” series. In the vein of its being almost Mother’s Day, feel free to review Mom’s tribute too!

My dad is an exceptional manager.  December 2016 may well have been the ultimate challenge in his management career. Dad was the one who sprang into action and snagged those plane tickets I referenced in Mom’s post. In fact, he snagged them so quickly that he and Mom boarded the plane only a couple of hours after the initial phone call. Riverside found Dad by Ivan’s side as they untangled a baffling web of doctors and lawyers. Dad’s tenure in resort management followed by 20 years of pastoral experience (think TONS of hospital visitations!), provided the ideal skill set for organizing such a logistical nightmare.  Speaking of pastoral duties, that’s the other December puzzle Dad had to solve. Even if you’re not a regular church-goer, it’s easy to guess that Christmas is the year’s focal point for every church. There are extra children’s programs. There are extra community outreaches. There’ s the traditional Christmas Eve service. On top of all this, our church offers an early Christmas Morning service (although not all churches do that). My Dad only began caring for Hillside (his and now our church) in Summer 2016, so December 2016 was his first chance to tackle their particular Christmas agenda. And suddenly we needed him 24/7 in Riverside, about 400 miles south of where all the Hillside action was happening. Not ideal.

Since I was unconscious for a while and then woke up with the mental capacity of a toddler, I didn’t analyze how he managed so much multitasking. I know now that he was with us almost all the time at the hospital (so NOT in San Jose), and that he stuck with Ivan through thick and thin when it came to legal and medical affairs. Apparently there were some flights and drives to San Jose so Hillside remained functional, but I don’t really remember times when he was gone. I do remember a lot of phone calls. Most of those probably involved leading Hillside in absentia. While it’s only natural that both those parties regretted an untimely separation during the busiest time of the year, the amount of love and encouragement Dad received to place family above all else – that kind of church support seems almost supernatural.

(Here’s where I offer a GIANT shout out to the incredible Hillside congregation. In case you’re wondering, none of them had ever met me at the time of the accident.)

Unfortunately, a church can be without its pastor for only so long. Dad transitioned back to San Jose while I was still in the rehab hospital, but stayed connected with all my “firsts” through FaceTime, phone calls, and WhatsApp.  He made as many personal visits to Riverside as possible. FYI, it’s no small feat to leave a congregation mid-week PLUS prepare a sermon on the go. Poor Dad also lived by himself for five months. Pardon my repetition, but I have no idea how any husband and wife could be apart for so long under that level of stress. Like Mom, he never complained. (Side note – he did develop an uncanny emotional connection with their black cat during that time. We received several cat + Dad selfies that he should be VERY thankful we deleted). Moving on from the bizarre cat relationship though, Dad’s devotion to caring for us meant one final flight to Riverside in May. He flew down specifically to drive our moving truck to San Jose. I cannot begin to imagine how stressful – and stuffy – driving an old truck up the State of California at the beginning of a hot summer must have been. I felt bad enough that Ivan dealt with all my TBI problems alone for 7 hours, but at least we had fun music and reliable air conditioning.

Our transition to San Jose returned Dad’s physical presence to both his ministry at Hillside and his relationship with us. From hanging pictures in our new apartment, to taking me on Friday coffee dates, to making it to every ER trip (as well as my Stanford and Redwood City hospital stays), Dad makes all the difference. I can guess that his undivided attention makes all the difference for our Hillside family, too. From me, Ivan, Mom, and Hillside – any deal with Dad is the best deal ever!