My Brother's Spirit

October 24, 2001

Someone once said that life is a circle. The lines drawn by the passing years of the love and loss we experience give the circle its shape. The insights we gain from our reflections and prayer fill it in. I believe that somewhere in the middle of this linear yet profound journey, we begin to anticipate connecting some of those lines and filling in the circle with the time and space we have traveled. Around mid-way through our life we begin to join beginnings with ends and ends with beginnings in order to fulfill our spiritual, intellectual and emotional needs. This is the story of my 39-year-old my brother's spirit--the enduring strength and inspiration he gives to others. Every wonderful act of kindness he has shown to others throughout his life has come back ten fold in the generosity and graciousness he has received from others during these most difficult weeks of his life.

On the fourth of October of this year Robert Garza Jr., suffered a motorcycle accident while on one of his many road trips through the beautiful Texas hill country. The accident completely severed his spinal column and has left him paralyzed from the chest down.

Because of this mid-life tragedy, the memory of December 23, 1961, the day he was born comes sharply into focus. The next day on Christmas Eve, our precious little brother returned with our mother from the hospital. My father, my three sisters and I rejoiced much more than such events usually call for.

You see, only a year earlier, around this same time of the year, our nine-year-old sister, Margarita, had died from a hemorrhage ten days after a tonsillectomy. We were living in South Side Chicago at the time and several time and space circumstances combined to keep her from the help she needed to prevent her bleeding to death. There was a blizzard that night. The ambulance was slow in responding. The surgeon had sent her home that very day when she should have been kept for observation, and worse still, the racial segregation and violence of those years kept my sister from being taken to the nearest hospital where she might have been saved.

As I said, we rejoiced at Robert's birth more than families usually do on such occasions. He was the first new life in our family after our sister's death and he was the first boy after five girls! Now, almost 40 years later, we rejoice because God chose to save his life. This time, the blessing of an opposite set of circumstances, saved him from sure death.

At the apex of a 40-mile an hour curved climb he lost control when his bike hit a brick-size fallen rock. His bike shot out from under him in one direction as his body was thrust toward the other.

As he flew through the air, his body broke several small trees. His head and chest took the full impact of the crash when he hit a boulder and then a tree. The full weight of his two hundred-pound body rested on his head and neck. He recalls how he stared at his hands as his face was pinned to his chest and how he was conscious of the contortion of his waist and legs to one side of his torso. He could not breathe. Never losing consciousness, he remembers begging God for just one breath. He could see the faces of his lovely wife and five children and prayed, "Dear God, don't let me go out like this, not now!"

With that prayer began the opposite set of circumstances that combined to save my brother's life. No one had witnessed the accident, but Robert's bike had fortunately landed where a passerby happened to spot it. Frank Karnes, a young man of twenty-five had the compassion and courage to look for the driver and the presence of mind to ask other travelers to drive to the nearest town and call for help. (Among these isolated rocks, cellular phones do not pick up signals). Robert would have died had he not been wearing a first rate helmet and full body leathers. He would have died had God not sent this Good Samaritan that day to cross paths with my brother.

Somehow Robert was able to communicate to Frank that he could not breathe. Though Frank knew not to remove his helmet, he also knew that the first rule of first aid is to clear airway passages. He asked all of the right questions and did all of the right things. Positioning my brother so that he could take his next life-giving breaths, Frank used his own 125lb. body to support Robert's weight for 45 minutes before the ambulance arrived. Robert could have also died from the internal bleeding caused by broken ribs that had punctured his lungs, had help not arrived when it did.

Robert reflects upon this moment today: "Once God gave me my first breath his many blessings were revealed to me. My brain was intact. I knew I would once again be able to love, embrace and kiss my wife, Kathy, and my children. I could see; I could hear; I could taste, smell and feel the world around me." My brother rejoiced with his new life just as we had rejoiced at his birth. "With that first breath, I quickly got past the "Why me Lord?" and moved on to the "What's next?" Despite the excruciating pain that set in after the initial shock, and even before the ambulance arrived, Robert recalls planning and preparing himself for whatever lay ahead, praying all the time that he would keep the use of his arms and cognitive skills. What followed was Life Flight to the emergency trauma center of Willford Hall Hospital at Lackland Airforce Base in San Antonio for initial evaluation. There he spent three days in ICU before he could undergo surgery a week later to fuse his spine. Next came his transfer to TIRR, The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, in Houston his hometown for the long recovery and rehabilitation he is now taking a day at a time. With the encouragement and treatment he has received at this wonderful facility, Robert maintains faith that with God's will and with future advances in medical science he will one day he walk again.

The paradox of this new tragedy for our family is that it is filled with miracles. Maybe on that fateful day our sister's spirit was present in the trees, the wind and the birds Robert loves so much. Maybe she kept him alive for us, for his wife and children and all of those he has touched through the years with his love, generous spirit, courage and strength. Perhaps his survival has even inspired New Hope by helping our family to close our own painful circle. The family is more united than ever, something Robert had always tried to accomplish with his travels, picture calendars and barbecues. This tragic accident has freed my brother's spirit to serve as an even greater example than before of the good we can do for each other as we journey toward closing and filling our life's circle. Robert's ferocious energy for life radiates to all those who come near enough to be touched by it. But I am certain that every act of kindness Robert has received from his friends has had the ripple effect of inspiring others with whom they come in contact to do the same for others in need. That is perhaps the greatest blessing of all. Finally, I believe my brother's survival and enduring spirit encourages us to reach within ourselves for the power and light with which we are all born and to which we all hope to one day return.

The End

This story was written by Leticia M. Garza-Falcon, Ph.D. in collaboration with her brother, Robert Garza Jr.

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