For a long time, I wondered why I was left alive after my accident. I knew how easily my life could have ended, but I survived, and for years I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do with that.
Before my accident, I was an auto technician. I loved figuring out how things worked, fixing problems, and especially helping people. There was a good feeling that came from taking something that wasn’t working and finding a way to make it work again. Looking back, maybe that part of me never went away. The tools just changed.
Now I’m learning how technology can give some independence back to people who have lost it. Using a computer, photo editing with Luminar Neo, assistive equipment like the QuadLife mouse, voice control, and environmental controls gives me abilities that my body no longer gives me on its own. I want to keep improving my setup and eventually show other handicapped people what is possible.
I would love to start a YouTube channel showing how I use Luminar Neo with the new functions of the QuadLife mouse, not just to edit photographs, but to show what somebody with very limited physical movement can still create and accomplish. If something I learn makes another person’s day a little easier, gives them more independence, or helps them discover something they thought they could no longer do, then everything I have learned has a purpose.
Maybe I was left alive for a reason. I spent much of my life as a technician helping people solve mechanical problems. Maybe this is simply another version of that same job. Instead of fixing cars, maybe now I can use my experience, creativity, and the technology available to me to help people like myself become a little more independent and feel a little more able-bodied.
I don’t know for certain if this is the reason I’m still here.
But maybe this is it.