It started with a
TED Talk. Colleen Haggerty spoke about the accident that ripped off her leg when she was seventeen. The floodgates of anger and depression that defined
her disabled her as much as the lost limb. Colleen saw the driver at the trial but was never able to speak to him. Then on the fifteen year anniversary she called him. To verbally rip him apart.
Yet when she heard his sobs, and the way his life had unraveled, her fury dissipated. Instead of hating him, she cared.
I bought her book to hear more of what she had to say. The rocky and confusing path after the crash would have
made even a two legged woman falter. Broken relationships, isolation, dropping out of college, and unending pain followed her like a ball and chain. Then when she let in the possibility that Harvey had suffered too, she could release the armor and feel compassion instead of revenge.
The vacancy in her heart after rage left, made room for her to meet and fall in love with her husband. The one who saw her as complete.
On the twenty
fifth anniversary she and her therapist had a ceremony. They brought helium balloons to the crash site and wrote messages on them. One by one the colorful lollipops flew to the sky.
"My beauty is about who I am on the inside." Whoosh.
"I walk into my life with courage and joy." Bounce.
"I accept and love my body as it is." Zoom.
"I am stepping into my
wholeness." Twirl.
Colleen invited Harvey to come spend time with her family as well. He had lost his wife, and his job, and many of his friends.
They talked about that day, and really heard each other.
"I would give you my leg if I could," he said. He broke down weeping, and Colleen cried too.
"I don't want your leg, Or anyone's leg. I am enough
the way I am. So are you."
He looked up with hope in his eyes. Then they started to laugh. Deep, belly laughs until their sides hurt.
Colleen realized that rather than asking if everything could be forgiven, the real question was whether everyone could learn to
forgive.
