I am Stephanie M. Freeman and I want to begin by saying I am a marathon runner. I have completed 7 marathons one of which was The Boston Marathon 2014. I am a marathon runner because it is something I am very passionate about. I have allowed running to be my life therapy through some extremely difficult times. But running isn’t a skill that was given to me so easily.
At 14 years old I was involved in an automobile accident and received a traumatic brain and lung injury. I lived two months of my life from this injury in a coma on life support. One moment I recall walking out the door of my parents’ home to go hang out with some friends on a Friday night, and the next moment I recall waking up in a wheelchair, and had no idea what I was doing and where I was at. This is a moment I have recalled vividly in my mind since 1993. And I say confidently today that it has been my driving force to keep going and keep swinging my whole life.
In that moment I recall looking around me and noticing I was sitting in a wheelchair. I said to myself, Stephanie what are you doing here, and I unbelted the chair and proceeded to get out of it. I fell to the floor on my face because I could no longer walk due to the brain injury I had received. I remember and all the nurses surrounding me picking me up off of that floor. It was not only a very humiliating moment for me but a very defining moment in my life. Because I said that day I would not leave that hospital in a wheelchair! And I walked out of those hospital doors two months later, on October 8, 1993.
I have allowed that humiliating moment of hitting that floor to drive me not just out of those hospital doors but it has taken me as far as The Boston Marathon Finish line. It is my belief and to my core life is given to us to be given away. We do not go through moments such as this to just forget and move forward, we are given moments such as this to share. Because those moments I have found are our most defining. Never Give Up!