Fernando's journey

After Las Vegas, I spent three weeks in Sunnybrook Hospital and six months in the Lyndhurst Rehabilitation Centre in Toronto. Michele and Taryn visited me daily. Since Michele was driving at the time of the accident, she had her own issues to deal with. She was incredibly courageous to get back in a car and drive from Mississauga, Ont., where we lived at the time, to see me in Toronto. No amount of thanks or love could ever be enough for someone who stood beside me and shared this burden.

Taryn was like a mascot around the centre. Everybody looked forward to her visits; the patients would be in therapy and she'd come in to play. Sometimes a visitor would hold her overhead and spin her to play airplane. I thought, That's what I'm going to do some day. While I was trying to learn how to live with my disability, Taryn was learning how to walk. She took her first steps at Lyndhurst, surrounded by paraplegics and quadriplegics. Like any parent watching his child take her first steps, I was filled with pride. But at the same time, I despaired. She was learning to walk, and I was learning to live without walking.

An accident such as mine changes everything. I was demoted from one caste to another. Just three months before, I had started a new job as art director at Elle Canada. I was 36 and hitting my professional stride.

Michele and I had a perfect new baby graced with her good looks and my dark eyes. I went from having it all to being "that guy in a wheelchair."

We had to move from our home in Mississauga because it wasn't accessible. I can't hang out with my coworkers like I used to; I'm not sure if I'll ever have coworkers again. People even assume my IQ is lower just because I'm in a chair.

But then there's Taryn. In her drawings, she and I are the same height. She only remembers me in this wheelchair, which she has always referred to as a rocking chair.

The long years since the accident have been riddled with unimaginable pain and deep depression. There were countless moments when, knowing that I would never be tall, pain-free and able-bodied again, I suffered utter desolation. There are still days when I'm fed up with everything: tired of having to haul my body over to therapy and with filling out yet another form. Sometimes I'm just plain sick of not being able to nip into a store without asking some stranger to lift me up over the curb. Some days I simply want to load myself up with pain-killing meds and ignore the rest of the world.

But at any one of those moments I just think of Taryn and I find the strength to move on. I'm her dad. I cannot let her down. To give up would be to betray her.

When I reflect on the time between my accident, which took place on May 17, 2002, and now, I realize that Taryn not only saved my life by calling me into the backseat, but she has also done so many times since. Taryn, now four, inspires me to take whatever baby steps I can to improve my situation and get on with my life. She also reminds me that even though I am not the man I used to be, I'm still a whole dad, paralysis be damned. Taryn is the only person in my world who doesn't remember the old Fernando, so I know she doesn't miss him. It's that thought that lets me be as good a dad as any.

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