The Promise: A Tragic Accident, a Paralyzed Bride, and the Power of Love, Loyalty, and Friendship (13 page)

After that, at the reception, a Southern band played and we cut the cake. The photographer and videographer zoomed in on the knife. We were trying to cut our Funfetti cake, my favorite, with the knife upside down. I blamed Chris. I had no grip, so he was holding it. We included all the fun traditions like throwing my garter, which was an ECU Pirates garter purchased for the original wedding, and tossing my bouquet, which I did as Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” played in the background. My brother was dating a really cool girl named Becca, whom he had met at one of my rugby tournaments. She was also a quad due to a birth defect. He flew her up from Florida for the wedding. She caught my bouquet. A guy from my rugby team, Ronnie, also a quad, caught the garter. So that was pretty cool and kind of fitting.

We gave everyone blue bracelets for spinal cord awareness and we made a donation to the Miami Project, whose goal is to cure paralysis, in the names of everyone who had been invited to the wedding.

BraunAbility had loaned me a van while I planned my wedding, but I never imagined that they’d actually give me one. At the end of my wedding reception, everyone lined up outside to throw yellow rose petals and blow bubbles as Chris and I made our exit. We rolled down the middle of a long row with everyone on either side. We turned a bit as there was sort of a bend in the crowd, and there it was: this big van covered in a white tarp with a bow. They pulled it off to reveal a sporty Toyota Sienna that didn’t look like a soccer mom van. I was in love. Later, a local company called Van Products installed hand controls, which didn’t require hand function, but just the strength in my arms to maneuver, and a transfer chair. The driver’s chair moved back and turned with the press of a button, so that I could transfer in from my wheelchair.

Chris and I did not consummate our marriage that night. Everything had been romantic and sweet, but we were too tired. I was playing with my little nephew after the wedding. We were trying to throw a football in the room, and I was lying on the bed. He wrapped my hand around the ball for me. He was really good with the injury. He asked if we could watch a movie, which made Chris realize it would be a long night, so Chris and his best man went to get ice cream. I thought they were coming right back, but they were gone for a long time because Chris thought I was hanging with my family. It was funny. He finally returned, and we ate some leftover food from the wedding. We were exhausted by that point, so instead of having some passionate night as man and wife, we just crashed.

Chris was like Prince Charming sometimes. When he was feeling romantic, he’d hold my face and rub my cheek and look into my eyes, and he often said the sweetest and most genuine things. On this night, as we were falling asleep after the most wonderful day, he turned to me and said, “Rachelle, I could never live without you. I’m so excited we are starting our life together. You were so beautiful today.”

I said, “Thank you.” We kissed. “I loved our dance together.”

“Everything was perfect. The dance was perfect,” he said. “The whole wedding.”

“I wouldn’t change a thing about the day,” I said. “Nothing went wrong, either,” I said laughingly.

He grew serious again, looked me straight in the eyes, and said, “I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life with any other person. Just you. Forever.”

I always felt we were two halves of one whole, but that night, it was official. I was his other half and he mine—and it was forever. We’d beaten all of the odds and skeptics because we knew love. We had true love. Our souls had connected.

CHAPTER 26

The Finish Line

Something unexpected happened following my wedding
that I heard about only afterward. My girls—who wouldn’t have met had it not been for me, and who wouldn’t have bonded as strongly if they had not had a shared experience by the pool that night—went out after the reception and had the greatest time, the four of them and their dates, plus Chris’s best man and Mayra.

I was told later they had been worried initially about the one friend who had suffered, but after spending time with her that day, they could see that she was really happy to be a part of it all. That night, after Chris and I left, they talked about their new perspective on life, and how much they cherished it. They said the wedding ceremony itself was closure for all of us, so they danced and partied their butts off afterward and had the best time ever. It was their night, too, I think. In fact, some of them weren’t even going to stick around that night, but this crazy party erupted among them. I actually felt a little sad that I missed it, but I was glad that they found peace in their own way, too, together. Apparently, they all just let loose and had a blast for the first time together since the bachelorette party.

I think this marked a nice ending for my troubled friend. I wanted her to have a good time, and it sounds like she did. It was a really big deal for her that day. It was important to her that I got married and had that milestone. It was probably the real start to her healing—to see me happy and to know that love had not been taken away from me, that the one thing I wanted had only been postponed, not stolen completely. It was as important to her for me to say “I do” as it was for me. It was good for her to have these girls around her. They all protected each other, and that came out collectively on the dance floor as they burned off one year of steam.

CHAPTER 27

Paradise

We left in the morning and had our first night in Vegas.
It was so much fun gambling for the first time, but we wound up losing, of course. We got tickets to see
The Lion King,
courtesy of 1-800-Registry. I’d never seen anything like it before—it was amazing. We stayed at the Mirage Hotel. I thought the lights and the strip were the coolest thing ever.

After the night in Vegas, we headed off to Fiji, which had always been my dream destination. I never thought in my wildest dreams I’d be able to travel there. We flew in and had to take a helicopter ride to our destination, which was called Tokoriki Island. It was breathtaking. We had a large bungalow at the Tokoriki Island Resort with a huge bed and white linens, and we could open the windows and the back door and it felt like we were outside even when we were inside. It was just a ceiling, and the walls were basically open. The shower was outdoors and had blue tile.

Everything was blue. The water was blue, crystal blue as far as you could see. There was an infinity pool that Chris would float in; we could sort of see the edge of it, but then it would blend in with the ocean. There were palm trees everywhere. It was gorgeous.

Of course all of the food was amazing, but my favorite dish was at breakfast. Pancakes covered in powdered sugar—so good I couldn’t get enough. We ate every meal on tables outside, looking at the ocean. It was truly paradise. At dinner the waiters would play music. Once, our waiter came around to us and asked if we wanted a love song or an upbeat song. I said both. They started playing Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours.” I couldn’t help but sing along.

Chris learned to scuba dive while we were there. That was something I used to do and always wanted him to learn. They allowed me to go on the boat with him even though it was rough. I just sat there and held on tight. The workers were so nice, all native Fijians from the local village. They carried me on and off the boat. We took two trips over to the local village, which was our favorite part of the trip. It wasn’t exactly wheelchair accessible, so Chris had to lean my chair back and wheelie me over a lot of the terrain. It seemed like none of the kids on the island had ever seen a wheelchair. I let them touch it and spin the spinners. The inside piece actually spins, kind of like a pimped-out car you might see, except I spin these manually. They loved it.

Some other kids approached me on the trip and wanted to know what had happened to me, so our guide, Vili, told them in their native language. He knew my story, as we had become good friends while we were on the island.

Chris did a lot to help on that trip, even going so far as to put waves in my hair with a wave-making iron I had brought along. It turned out he was very particular about wanting to make my hair look good. He’d talk me through it, saying, “Hold still. Wait a minute. Almost done.” It was pretty darn funny. One day, we plugged the iron in and it totally fried. We just stared at it in disbelief. We had a good laugh about that.

While we were away, absorbed in luxury and sunshine, the media had apparently gone absolutely crazy because the wedding stirred up the story again. We did get some time on the Internet there, so we read all these crazy stories and the comments. I was amazed the world had taken such interest. We were scheduled to fly to New York when we returned from Fiji for appearances on
Today,
HLN, MSNBC, and
Inside Edition.
It was exciting and exhausting all at once.

Of course, when we first arrived in Fiji, we were very tired. That kind of travel was something I’d certainly never experienced. Plus I was jet-lagged. But after we caught up on our sleep and overcame the exhaustion of our wedding and the trip, we finally consummated our marriage. It was really wonderful. I wrapped my arms around him and he kissed my neck, and it was passionate and loving. A moment I’ll never forget.

CHAPTER 28

My New Reality

When we returned from Fiji, with the wedding behind us,
it was time to start moving forward and figuring out what I would do with my time. The wedding and my healing had taken up a lot of my efforts, and the media appearances surrounding it all had been a whirlwind.

I started to find that my days weren’t very interesting. I wanted to work, of course, but the nerve pain made me an unreliable employee, sometimes taking over my body for hours in the morning and often into the afternoon. Still, in the months that followed our wedding, I began to grow increasingly aware that the fast-paced, media-infused life I’d been leading wasn’t real, and with the wedding planned and done, well, suddenly, everything stopped. That’s when I was confronted with really understanding my injury and learning to handle it. I knew I had to do something to fill my days and figure out what my next steps in life would be.

That meant my friends became that much more important to me. Those girls by the pool were suddenly everything. I had Chris to look forward to at the end of each day, and I loved seeing him and eating dinner with him, but I found myself relying more and more on them. In fact, there had been a dramatic shift: I had been their strength, especially for one of them, but now I needed them badly to help me figure it all out.

I found that all of them helped. Samantha suddenly had such a calming way with words and situations; that was her gift to me. Britney was always there to talk and kept me company, as some days stretched on and felt endless. Lauren was always that friend who responded to texts in the middle of the night, no matter how much time had passed, and Carly was the one who provided me with the most random laugh over the most absurd thing, always right when I needed it.

That support helped me make some big decisions. I decided to return to doing what I loved before I was hurt: coaching the Wake Shakers, the seniors cheerleading team. They participate in local and state senior games that lead to the Senior Olympics, with all different events, including sports but also acting, singing, and cheerleading. Right after college, I was working with kids in an afterschool program, and these seniors were using the back room of the same facility. I had to set it up for them before I left, and I overheard them talking about needing a coach.

I jumped into their conversation and said, “I’m here anyway, so if you want help, I’m available.”

They took me on. I felt bad because I’d taught them all of their cheers, but then I got hurt. I was supposed to add dance lessons, but I wasn’t able to. They had to scramble to find someone to help right after the accident. Still, I was able to return, and they were excited to have me. It was really nice to know they missed me, and they said that they’d never let me go again.

Since we had a specialized van, I needed to learn to use it. So that became another project for after the wedding. At first it was really helpful for my mother to get me around in it. A small car was challenging. The first time my mom drove me in my van, I was strapped in, but somehow I shifted and tilted and eventually fell back flat. We laughed our heads off. I called moments like that “quad moments.”

Eventually, I had to take steps to learn to drive myself, so in July 2012 I decided to get started. I needed to get used to just getting into the van. The way the van was set up made it possible for me to drive alone, but it was a physical undertaking at the same time. I had to use all of my strength to push my wheelchair up the ramp and into the van, and then getting into the driver’s seat meant using every available muscle in my arms, as well as a slide board. I didn’t have the strength to lift myself, so I learned to slide myself. I had to get used to steering once I was inside, too—and it also required more arm than hand strength. To turn the wheel I kept my right hand wedged between triangulated pins surrounding my wrist, and to apply brakes or gas I kept my left hand on the hand controls. It was completely different than anything I’d ever done. Just sitting there the first time I got in was really scary, and I knew I’d be afraid on the open road. It was nerve-wracking. Add to all of this that I had never driven anything larger than a Honda Accord before the accident, so driving a van felt like driving a spaceship. I knew it was going to be a challenge.

Like everyone else, before I really even got going, I had to struggle my way through the DMV. It was a huge ordeal, and I had to argue with them to obtain my permit. I needed a permit so I could learn to drive with an occupational therapist first, but they repeatedly told me a road test was in order. I made arrangements to meet with the therapist, but I never took that road test. I couldn’t. My car would not be fully adapted until after I trained with the occupational therapist. The therapist evaluated me to see what I needed. I finally made the DMV workers understand.

There was another hurdle, though. I trained with the occupational therapist in her car and it took some getting used to. I had two hours of fiddling around, and then this woman made me drive on the busiest interstate in my region. It was trial by fire, but I pulled it off. After just four hours of one-on-one training, I took and passed a driving test.

I realized quickly that I liked the independence. I would take an occasional trip to T.J.Maxx just to go look at clothes and be girly, but it always took a lot out of me energy-wise. One afternoon, I took a trip to the mall, and while there I rolled by a kid who was clearly intrigued by my chair. I heard him say something to his mom about it.

I stopped and went back and said, “Wanna see something cool?”

He said yes.

I spun my spinners for him, and his eyes lit up.

He asked, “Can I try?”

I said yes, of course, and he loved it. He didn’t want to stop. He finally did and I started to roll away.

He yelled, “Wait.”

I did and he came up and gave me a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek. It was a great moment, and I hope it changed that kid’s view of people in wheelchairs or of anyone who might be different. I loved that his mom hadn’t pulled him away. I had started to notice that some parents yanked their kids away from me so quickly. I tried that afternoon to teach at least one kid that we are all the same. I hope, in some small way, I helped to eliminate the ignorance so often instilled.

So I took small trips on occasion, but driving to one place took four transfers, which I learned was exhausting. It meant I had better
really
want to go somewhere badly to make the trip. Nevertheless, because being so dependent on others was frustrating, getting my driver’s license helped somewhat. It allowed me to more easily visit my girls and some days to just take a ride to get out of the house.

When I first started learning, there was a huge debate between my driving trainer and me. She insisted I should get rid of my manual chair and get into a power chair. I had been adamant about staying in a manual, so it was sort of frustrating and took away from the excitement of the situation. Yes, it’s easier to get up the ramp and to roll yourself in and drive from your chair. But there are basic freedoms taken away when you choose a power chair. I’d never be able to ride in my friends’ cars, because they couldn’t transport the chair, and Chris wouldn’t be able to pop me up and down stairs. I wouldn’t be able to simply be wheeled out onto the beach. So even though transferring to the driver’s seat is more difficult and time consuming in a manual chair, I was never afraid of hard work. I could push, so I wanted to push.

Driving made me feel normal. Cleaning my house did, too, and so after we were married I made an effort to be a typical wife and to provide my husband with a nice home to return to at the end of each workday. Unlike some people, I hated cooking, and that never changed. But I found that after the wedding, and as the media attention died down, I liked the peacefulness of cleaning, so I tried more and more to do things like laundry by myself.