DAY 366: One Year Later

Exactly one year ago today, Mom and Emily set out on their last horseback ride of the 2006 season. Little did they know, it would be the last of Mom's life.

After four months at St. Anthony hospital in Denver, one month at Mapleton Rehabilitation Center in Boulder, physical therapy, doctors appointments, follow-up surgery, and healing, Mom has arrived at a place that's not quite back to where she was before the accident, but is pretty close.

I remember during the first few weeks of her coma, when we were all huddled at the hospital, talking about Colleen's wedding coming up in June. Would Mom be able to attend? Would she even be alive? The worries and tears flowed freely.

Guess what? She was alive in June and she did make it. Here we are on Colleen and Dain's wedding day, last June 8:


In early June, shortly before the wedding, I sent a letter to the newspapers of Estes Park:

To the Estes Valley community:

With a deep bow and a warm handshake, I'd like to thank this community for helping my family get through our mother's near death from a horseback riding accident last fall.

On October 30, 2006, her horse spooked and ran her into a tree near our home in Allenspark. The impact fractured her skull, damaged her brain, destroyed her left optical nerve, shattered her left arm, broke her ribs, ruptured her spleen, deflated her left lung, and lacerated her liver. She was taken by Flight-For-Life helicopter to St. Anthony Central Hospital in Denver where she lay in a coma for ten weeks.

I returned to Colorado from my home in Japan to help my three younger brothers and three younger sisters get through the crisis. I discovered that the good people of these mountains had already rushed forward to lend a hand. We found food in the refrigerator and a paid-up gasoline account in Lyons. There were homes for my youngest brothers when none of us adults could look after them. People drove to Denver to deliver care packages filled with goodies we hadn't even known we'd wanted until they arrived. One seemingly small one that helped me get through the long nights was a Lakewood Library card. Back in the mountains, people sat in churches under winter skies to hear our family's story delivered in homilies of all denominations.

Friends I hadn't seen in years came back to me as if we'd met just the day before. People I'd never met behaved as if we'd been neighbors since I was a boy. I learned that my mother, whom I'd always known to be an especially bright ray of light in the world, had touched even more lives than I'd realized. Beyond her own seven children, she'd helped, advised, and joked with nearly everybody she met. When life changed the weather around her and left her in need of care, those people flowed to her aid as melt-off in the spring, portending warmer days in the same way. Seeing that touched me and changed the mood of the moment, and I can't imagine a better result of caring than that.

The lowest point came two days before Christmas when Mom was on 100 percent oxygen support and not getting better. She lay on a rotating bed to distribute the fluid in her lungs in hope of keeping enough surface area dry to enable her to breathe. The lead trauma doctor called me aside and said, "As the eldest son, you should know that your mother's situation is dire. She's shown a pattern of stair-stepping lower. If she goes down one more step, we won't be able to save her, and we think she's going to take that step." He put a hand on my shoulder. "It's the real deal. You need to think about calling your family together to say good-bye."

I walked around Sloan's Lake behind the hospital. I looked toward our home in the mountains and thought long about what to do. I thought of my adopted brothers Daniel and Charlie who'd each lost their birth mothers and, at just 13 and 11, already stood at the brink of losing the only mother whose warmth they'd ever known. I saw in my mind the faces of all who'd helped us and who said prayers for our mother every night. Mom was only 56 years old. She shouldn't die. She was too young with too many people still in need of her. Somewhere deep inside me, I felt that she would not die. There was no medical support for that feeling, and history is filled with stories of people who died before their time, so I knew that my desire alone was not enough to keep her alive. Yet, I felt that she would not die.

I stopped walking and fixed my gaze on Mt. Meeker far away, and decided that I would not gather my family to say good-bye to Mom. Instead, I would make a lovely Christmas for them and count on the spirit of the season to see her through.

It did.

Shortly after New Year's Day, Mom began a spectacular recovery that left doctors amazed. She woke up, she spoke, she ate, she went to rehab, she walked, she returned home, and she gets up each morning with the same sense of humor that's made her a joy to so many people through the years. She can't see out of her left eye, her left arm barely moves, and she speaks with a slur, but she's alive and she's still her old self to seven grateful children who owe her everything.

At the time of Mom's accident, my sister, Colleen, was engaged to be married in June. She asked me through tears last November if I thought Mom would live to see her wedding. I said yes, but we couldn't be sure. We're sure now. Mom has a new dress and a festive eye patch, and will join all of us this Friday, June 8 to see Colleen get married at Rocky Mountain Church at 11:30 a.m. I will give away the bride. Anybody is welcome to join our family and friends at the ceremony.

From all of us in the Kelly family, thank you, Estes Park, for your help through our tragic time. Yours is a magical place in the world where a man can return from distant shores to the worst of circumstances, and leave again feeling that he is blessed.

Since then, Mom has only improved. We remain hopeful for her full recovery one day, when she can get through an entire morning without getting tired, when her body is more limber, when she feels like herself again.

In the meantime, we're ecstatic to still have her. Yesterday, Emily and I took her on a picnic in the woods behind our home.


We're looking forward to many more days like that.