When life gives you lemons…

One year ago on November 26th a phonecall started to unstitch the seams in my life. My sweet sister said six words in a voice that I have never heard her use before. “Dad has been in an accident.” He called and said that he had been in a head on collision, and that it was bad. Then the call ended. You can’t make that sort of horror up. She didn’t know any more details and started driving in the general location of where he was going that day.

My dad drove a large 4-wheel drive truck. I naively ran through the scenarios of hoping that he was ok, it was inconceivable at the time that he would be anything other than ok. Perhaps a broken leg, what colour would the cast be, perhaps we could paint it? The mind is a silly place when reality suddenly slips. I thought about the other car and hoped that nobody was seriously hurt and that the accident was not dad’s fault. Because I knew my dad well enough to know that the guilt of hurting someone else would crush him.

Our initial thoughts always seem so simple in the glaring daylight of hindsight. I had no idea what journey we were all embarking upon. I had no idea that a small Japanese made car could inflict such devastation to someone in a very much larger vehicle. I had no idea that the other driver could walk away while my dad would never walk gain. Speed is a demon of force. We control nothing.
The next few months of hospitals and surgeries and devices in vain are a grimy blur. Life simply has to go on, even when everything points to stopping. This anniversary, almost a year later, is the first of many firsts. I had been subconsciously dreading this date since it all happened. Since all of the sadness came to stay.

The decision to have the launch of our new company and to promote a book about my dad, on this exact one year anniversary, is a catharsis of the soul.
Life can essentially either be full of fear or full of hope. It is simply as black and white as that. It all depends on which dish you decide to serve yourself from. And that choice is actually something we can control. I know that all the circumstances that brought me to this new place are the foundations of my journey. I know that I am meant to write and to continuously ignore that fact sandpapers away at my purpose in life. So instead I am serving myself a healthy portion of hope and polishing some brand new memories to shine in place of the tarnished ones.

Nothing would ever be the same again, but different doesn’t have to be an adhesive to sadness. Life should be a reminder to do the things in life that make you the happiest. Take those lemons and make the best lemon meringue pie.
I am honoured and proud to dedicate my very first book to the memory of life, love and the adventures of the truly remarkable, Jim Craig.