How A Sweet Boy And A Truck Reminded Me The Secret To Love
A sweet boy from high school taught me something about love this week.
Of course, he is no longer a boy.
Now a man.
A husband.
A father.
An incredibly happy one last July as he walked along Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France.
Do you remember the evil that happened that night?
As the French celebrated Bastille Day, their independence day?
A crazed terrorist barreled a truck down that boulevard packed with people.
His single mission was to destroy lives.
86 people died that night.
Greg’s wife saw the truck first.
She screamed for him to jump out of the way as she dove for safety with their 10-year-old daughter.
“I had to decide to jump right or left,” Greg told me this week. “I jumped to the left. For the most part I got out of the way except for my right leg and foot. They got hit by the front of the truck.”
As his wife and daughter scrambled to take cover in a nearby building, Greg sat in the street, bodies strewn all around him.
His leg was broken in 12 places.
He was losing a lot of blood.
Chaos all around him.
“Two people saved my life that night,” he told me. “My wife first, and this stranger second.”
“This man put me in the back seat of his car and quickly took me to the hospital. I went right into a five-hour surgery.”
That was the beginning of multiple surgeries and a two-month hospital stay.
Followed by two months in rehab and another 2 ½ recovering in France.
Finally, more than six months after Greg came face to face with evil, he and his family are back home in America.
The leg doctors told him they might have to amputate is 90% healed.
As we spoke, I couldn’t help but wonder.
Has this taken the sweetness out of the nicest boy in our high school class?
“It has changed how I see people,” he admitted. “I see deep down this maniac who killed a bunch of people.”
I held my breath wondering if this terrorist had also crushed Greg’s heart?
“Beyond that person, people are good,” he exhaled. “We got such incredible support during my recovery. It’s overwhelming, really. Whether it’s in France, America, or the majority of the world, people care. And they want to help. And I didn’t realize that as much as I do now.”
Greg and his family overwhelmed with the kindness extended to him during his recovery.
That’s where I found the lesson.
For any of us who have been hit by a proverbial truck.
Which is me.
And you, too, Dear Reader?
Smashed by love,
A broken heart?
By someone who done us wrong?
By love that has not shown up?
This Valentine’s Day, sweet Greg reminded me the secret to love.
There’s so much you can’t control.
Most stuff, really.
But you do get to choose where to jump.
To what has gone wrong,
Or oh, so right.
Me?
I’m with him.
Staring straight ahead.
At what is good.
At what is love.
((Please catch my column each week in The Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Dayton Daily News and other Cox Newspapers across the country.)))
And if you enjoy this column about love, you might enjoy my book,
