Me: What are you looking for?
Prodigal: These tracks.
Me: It’s as well hidden as Grannie’s snuffbox.
Prodigal: Maybe I should come up with a different plan.
Me: You might want to.
This is from Stick a Geranium in Your Hat and Be Happy by Barbara Johnson
The first blow come in 1966 when Bill and I were to be counselors for our church young people’s group at a conference ground in the San Gabriel Mountains. Bill went on ahead that night, taking up supplies, and I planned to follow in my car after picking up a few last-minute items. Our two older boys, Steve and Tim, were going to camp on the buss with their youth group, while Larry and Barney, our two younger boys, rode with me. So off we went on our great adventure.
The dark mountain road hadn’t been used during the winter months, but it had been opened specifically for our church group to caravan up for a pre-Easter retreat. About ten miles from the conference grounds, I came upon a man sprawled in the middle of the road, covered with blood and glass. The only way I could tell it was Bill was by his clothes. I knew other cars would be coming along soon after me, so I left one of the children to stay with Bill in the road while I drove ten miles farther to camp to get to a telephone and call an ambulance.
It took almost two hours to get Bill to a hospital, but some how he lived despite head injuries that left part of his brain exposed. Apparently Bill’s car had hit some debris in the road and flipped over.
The events of the next couple of days are blurred for me, but I do remember a neurosurgeon and ophthalmologist calling me to their office to explain Bill’s condition. The cranial nerves had been damaged, his vision was gone, and he was having seizures called “traumatic epilepsy.” It was their opinion that he would never be able to function again within the family unit because he would be like a vegetable–without vision and without memory.
I couldn’t believe it. Two days before we had been a happy family with four nice sons and no problems that I knew of. Now I was suddenly responsible for caring for four boys—two teenagers and two under twelve.
When Bill was released from our local hospital, he couldn’t see and didn’t respond to any of us. In fact, he hardly moved, and it seemed the doctors had been right–he would be like a vegetable.
I knew I had to initiate getting some financial help, so I called in a friend to come and stay with Bill while I went out to get us on any available programs. First, I went to the office of Aid for the Blind; they gave Bill a free white cane. That was a start. Then I began seeking help in earnest from the Veterans Administration because Bill had been a lieutenant commander in the Navy and would be eligible for benefits. I was told that he would have to be examined by their medical staff to determine his level of disability.
A few days later, I brought Bill in with me. When the Veterans Administration medical committee examined him and his medical records, they agreed with the other doctors that he could never function normally again. They told me that as soon as a bed opened up in the Sawtelle Veterans Hospital, he would be qualified to live there. I didn’t tell them that wasn’t what I had in mind at all.
Next I contacted the Social Security office to initiate disability payments for Bill, as well as aid for our four boys and myself. After making more visits to the Veterans Administration and Social Security to finalize payments, I also filed insurance claims because Bill had been ruled as permanently disabled. Because we had a CalVet loan, the mortgage on the house was completely taken care of. And our life insurance policy, which had a clause covering bodily injury, paid Bill $20,000 for his loss of vision–$10,000 for each eye. As far as the insurance company was concerned, Bill would be blind for life, and he was due the full amount.
All this took time and energy. It was a challenge just learning how to get on or collect from these agencies. Just as I finished obtaining help from the Veterans Administration, Social Security Disability, Aid to the Blind, and our insurance policies…..GOD HEALED HIM! It wasn’t’ an immediate healing, but during all those months while I was out trying to find financial help, Bill slowly regained his strength, and his sight miraculously returned, as well as his mental faculties. One of the first signs that something good was happening was that Bill started asking me questions like, “Who are you? Do you work here?”
Bill’s recovery was so complete that he started to consider going back to work. Here I had all these lovely checks flowing in regularly, and now I had to figure out a way to GET OFF all these programs! There were moments when I wondered why God couldn’t have healed Bill before I had done all that work. If you think it’s hard getting ON these programs, you should try getting OFF! You don’t just call the Veterans Administration and say, “Hello, remember my husband–the one you ruled as unrehabilitatable? Well, he is no longer blind, his brain damage is gone, he is suffering no more seizures, and he is going back to work as an engineer.”
The Veterans Administration told me to bring Bill back to their offices and their doctors would decide whether or not he has to be taken off disability. Our doctor went with us, and when Bill was examined by Veterans Administration doctors, they could hardly believe he was the same patient they had declared unrehabilitatble just a year before. Our doctor, a vibrant Christian man, tried to explain that Bill’s restoration had been God’s touch on his life, something not easily understood by those who have not experienced God’s healing hand.
One agency that didn’t give Bill clearance was the Department of Motor Vehicles. It seems they take a dim view of giving you back your driver’s license when you’ve been blind and had brain damage, seizures, and the like. When Bill went back to work, I had to drive him both ways every day because no one at the DMV wanted to give him a driver’s road test so he could get a license.
Bill wasn’t able to get his driver’s license reinstated for many months and, while driving him was a chore, our lives were beginning to seem more normal. We felt that God is the one who specialized in taking broken bodies and fractured minds and putting them back together again. The word restore means “to pop back into place,” and God had, indeed, brought restoration in those two years since the accident in 1966.
James 1:2-3
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptation; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
