Every now and then I think the Good Lord sends me an angel – something or someone to remind me how quickly life’s fortunes can change. This time it was young Mr. Dylan Black.
I struck up a conversation with Dylan the other day at a local Minden restaurant. I learned that he was originally from Oklahoma and moved to Shreveport as a youngster where he attended Southwood High School.
And that Dylan was quite an athlete at Southwood. He was on the golf team and could drive a golf ball 320 years and was a star catcher on the baseball team. His senior year, he was sought after by many colleges in both sports but decided to sign with Coach Paul Mainieri’s LSU tigers. Those of you who follow college sports know what a great honor it is to be invited to play baseball for 5-time national champion LSU. He wanted to play golf for LSU – but Coach Mainieri, fearing he might get hurt, said he preferred he didn’t.
After he graduated, he was going to Baton Rouge to be an LSU Tiger. Their starting catcher was going into his senior year so Dylan could look forward to lots of playing time.
That was before a drunk driver hit Dylan’s vehicle.
He told me about the day he was driving along Hwy. 169 near Greenwood when the trailer the man was pulling clipped his vehicle and caused it to flip 8 times. Dylan, now 23, spends his days in a motorized wheel chair with most of his body paralyzed.
You’d think Dylan would have every right to be bitter, having his hopes and his future dashed on that fateful day – but he isn’t. He came to Minden to reside at a local rehab center. His physical therapy starts around 10 a.m. and goes sometimes until 4 p.m. He exercises with a hand bike and does all he can to make sure his muscles do not atrophy.
He showed me how he uses his good hand to change the gears on his motorized wheelchair. “I can get it going up to about 10 miles an hour. Sometimes, when the weather is good, I’ll drive it down Homer Road – all the way here to the restaurant.”
Dylan said that, because his spinal cord was not severed and only swollen, he has a chance at recovery. Regaining the use of one of his hands gives him hope that more hard work during rehabilitation will continue to yield results in other areas of his body. His confidence and determination is both amazing and contagious.
This time of year we like to think of things for which we can be thankful. I’m thankful I met Dylan. I’m thankful that he is alive and has a chance at recovery.
Sometimes it takes a chance meeting, like the one we had, to make me stop to think how truly thankful I should be that my truck has never flipped over and left me the way it left Dylan. And if it ever did, I wonder if I could sustain his level of courage and optimism. Something tells me not.
This Thanksgiving won’t all be about the turkey, dressing, Black Friday sales, and desserts. I owe it to Dylan and others like him, to make this Thanksgiving more of a reminder of the little things I need not take for granted – like just walking, talking, and, most of all, for the opportunity to meet an angel for Thanksgiving.
Randy lives in Minden. He can be reached at planorand@yahoo.com.