Free The Promise: A Tragic Accident, a Paralyzed Bride, and the Power of Love, Loyalty, and Friendship by Rachelle Friedman

uncle, my parents, Chris, all the rest of the girls, and Chris’s family were there—everyone brought great food, and we took over the multipurpose room to celebrate. My mom brought Funfetti cupcakes, which are my absolute favorite. There was watermelon, too. There’s a really great place in Greenville called Parker’s BBQ and someone brought food from there, which was a nice break from the food I’d been eating for the past four weeks. It was like we had a big backyard BBQ celebration, but in this little rehab room with Wi-Fi and a big-screen TV instead of at someone’s house. It was just as fun.
    At some point while we were eating, we heard some commotion coming from the hallway. We all quieted our chatting to have a listen, and all of a sudden some senior citizens that I had taught cheerleading to came busting into the room. I had taken them on when I was the activities coordinator at their center. They represented our town at the Senior Games. They were in uniform and everything, cheering “L-E-T-S G-O, let’s go, let’s go, L-E-T-S G-O! Gooooo RACHELLE!” As I sat there watching, I realized that these women, even though they were forty years older than me, were my friends. My heart warmed at the thought.
    Everyone clapped, and I was completely moved. It was so nice of them to do this. The entire thing was a true celebration with lots of laughs, and not a tear was shed. We were all happy to be together, all my closest family and friends. Chris and I stayed together that night. We spent the night holding each other and talking about our future plans and how much we loved each other. I will say, in the morning when I woke up, I felt a little sad. I should have been on my honeymoon trip to the Bahamas. I should have been running up and down on the beach in a bikini with my new husband. I should have been married. That was when reality hit me.

CHAPTER 12
    Finding Peace
    About a month into rehab, around the end of June, I took my first trip out of the hospital. We went to a park I used to go to for fun and concerts. It felt nice to be outside while I was still recovering. I was turning a corner mentally and physically, and I was aware of that.
    My parents, Chris, and my friend Rebecca came along, and they wheeled me to the park. We sat there and enjoyed a concert. I hadn’t been outside since my injury, so I was taking it all in. I felt a little nostalgic and maybe a little bit sad. It was my first time back in that park in a while, and I couldn’t help but look around and think back to when I had walked around the grounds. It was situated next to the river my mom and I had gone kayaking on when she came to visit me when I was in college there. Rehab and my college were in the same town, so I was surrounded by history. Walking history. Able-bodied history. I tried to explain how I was feeling to everyone.
    “It’s so weird to be here, because I have so many good memories from this place,” I said.
    My dad said, “Well, now you’ll make new memories.”
    It was a simple yet profound statement.
    He said, “It’s actually a really good and important philosophy to make new memories every single day, especially now that you are healing. We shouldn’t live for old ones. We should live for new ones.”
    Those were some smart and powerful words, and I decided to make a daily effort during my recovery to live by them. It became my approach to all of this change. Later, my friend Rebecca, after pondering what my dad had said, wrote me an e-mail saying that she’d thought a lot about the statement and that it was true—there was so much more ahead of me. It was really nice to hear from her, knowing she’d given it as much thought as I had. That she was as moved by this simple concept: Life goes on and we make new memories every day, regardless of our situation or the hand we’ve been dealt. The note she sent made me realize something else, too: that my life and this accident had an impact on everyone around