In 1995 my wife Molly and I had been married for 7 years. We were having a great time in life.
We were the owners of a successful independent music company and had two great kids. A son, Sebastian, in college, and a daughter Kyrie, in high school. We were both extremely active and athletic people. We loved to ski and go camping and hiking and we both had black belts in the martial art of Aikido. We had an awesome home in Menlo Park with an amazing back yard paradise where we had a fabulous garden and grew lots of food.
In June of that year, Molly fell asleep driving her car back from a week long Aikido retreat. She was 20 minutes from home on Highway 280. Our daughter and two friends were also in the car, all of them asleep.
When they woke up, Molly’s car was in the middle of flipping end over end 3 1/2 times. Miraculously it was in a spot on the road where no other cars were involved. The cost of that little siesta however, was that when Molly woke up, she was a quadriplegic with a broken neck.
Thankfully, our daughter Kyrie and our two friends, although shaken from the experience, were not injured. It seemed to be a surgical strike on Molly.
Needless to say, our lives changed that day forever. Mine changed and I had no say. Believe me when I tell you, that sucked!
I guess you could call this story, “Survival of the Non-Fittest”, because I was the least prepared of anyone and everyone for what happened, and for what was yet to come.
I’m going to tell you about it though, so I hope you get something of value from me sharing what it has been like for me, and what it is like, to be my wife and best friend’s caregiver. It’s been over 20 years! I think it’s time!