Marriage Moats-Broken Neck

Published: Fri, 04/26/13

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

Last week there was a calamity in Boston that left countless lives changed forever. It is hard to comprehend the devastation and find what good can possibly be resurrected from that tragedy.

But here is the story of a man who was hit by a reckless driver twenty years ago, and whose neck was broken in the crash. The second half of his life has been calibrated by that moment, and the story he tells is spellbinding. It is brief, when you consider that it is the distillation of two decades of pain, and loss. Only a minute a year.

He grapples with tough questions.

"Are we defined by what happens to us?"

"What if the person who hurts me feels no remorse?"

Joshua Prager is a storyteller. Having listened three times I have come to know him, and to respect him. Even as he hobbles on the stage, in a body that was severed and smashed, his monologue offers me weightlessness. I find I am less interested in the injustice of one foolish driver's capacity to wreck another man's future, and am instead drawn to marvel at the ability of one person to transfix the hundreds of thousands who are impacted by his words, both spoken and the ones typed with a solitary finger.

Photo by Amy Vreeman

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