"In Loving Memory" I wrote this essay not long after my step dad hit a semi head on and was paralyzed. He died a few months after I wrote this.

It was 3:45 on a cold but sunny afternoon in Berkley, Michigan when I got the phone call I will remember for the rest of my life. A woman was calling from my wife's cell phone telling me my wife, Mary, hit a semi-truck, she was thrown from her car, and was lying in the middle of the road. At that point, I was overwhelmed with fear, anger, and grief all at the same time. The woman told me my wife knew enough to tell her my cell phone number and that she was going to call the police as soon as she got off the phone with me. Immediately, after I hung up the phone, I called everybody I knew who knew Mary and informed them of the situation.

Mary was on her way back up from a short business trip when she hit the semi-truck. I could not believe this was happening.

[Mary, Queen of Scots] (LOC)

Mary Hoyt Wiborg - Claire Bird - Leta Pell Wright,...

English: Systolic time data acquisition MRI image

I wanted to know why it was happening to us. Before, life was going great, everything was going as planned. It seemed like the world was wrapped around our finger tips. There was no way in the world this could be happening. Thousands of questions were flashing through my mind. How did this happen? What condition is she in? Is she going to live?

I was crying hysterically when I got a call from the state police telling me Mary was being flown, by helicopter, to Beaumont Hospital. I gathered my things as quickly as possible and drove to the hospital. When I got there, she was being wheeled into surgery. The nurse told me Mary shattered both her left leg and her hip, broke her right leg, and she was suffering from a severe head injury. The nurse told me to go sit in the...