Amanda’s Letters – April 22, 2024

Hi everyone from Amanda. It’s April 22, 2024.

It’s been exactly 731 days since my, Jeff Larson, my family’s, my friend’s, and my communities’ lives have changed.

I recently had a writing assignment in one of my classes, “What Have You Learned Since the Date of Your Accident”. I want to share my response with all of you if that’s okay. It is important to note, today is a tough day. This was a tough assignment. It is not my best work, and I am prideful when it comes to my writing. So, be gentle with me please.

I am writing this assignment on April 15, 2024. Two years ago today, I was on a sailboat with my favorite person in the world, oblivious to the pain that was soon about to invade my life. I was naïve to the fact that my existence as I knew it was about to suddenly change. 

Two years ago today, I had no idea what Jeff Larson was doing. Who was he? Was he happy? Did he feel loved? Did he experience a premonition that his life clock was in single digits? These are things I will never know and will never learn. Those questions make the things I have learned feel empty and less important. I know now, that for a moment on April 22, 2022, I was the most selfish person on the planet. My friends would describe me as someone with the biggest heart, yet I am the reason another heart stopped beating.

Our lives are made up of choices. In one instant, the choice I made that night ended one life and ruined others.

I’ve learned that the hardest grudge to break is the one we hold against ourselves. I am not sure I have learned how to let that grudge go. People say forgiving yourself is the first step to healing, but I haven’t learned how to do that either. I haven’t even figured out why I should forgive myself. All I can do is thank God that He has already forgiven me.

I’ve always believed that the only antidote to emotional pain is physical pain, but I have learned that the real antidote to emotional pain is spiritual fulfilment. God gives never ending grace and mercy. Even though this was a tragic accident, there are no accidents in Gods book. There is also no end to His love and forgiveness, and I am so thankful for that.

I’ve known a life without God at the center. These last two years made me realize there is nothing I want more than my life to revolve around Him. Rock bottom has many basements, but each basement has a staircase.

Nothing I can say or do will bring Jeff Larson back. There will always be a Jeff Larson sized hole in my heart. I have heard time heals, be patient. And in some circumstances, I think this is true. But sometimes, time doesn’t heal. time just stops. Time has frozen while the world keeps spinning. I wonder if time will ever resume.

I am not a victim. I do not ever want to come across as one. However, I think it’s an important part of my healing process to journal the things I have lost. In no way, shape, or form do they compare to what Jeff Larson lost that night. If I could go back and give my life up for his, I would without hesitation. Unfortunately, I cannot do that, so all I can do is learn to deal with what I have done.

I will never drive again, a fact that my brain cannot comprehend yet. I have dealt with severe memory loss, depression, anxiety, and horrible nightmares nearly every night. I have experienced insomnia, and I rarely sleep. I was diagnosed with severe disassociation disorder. My world doesn’t feel real most of the time. The lives of my friends have changed forever, my parents hurt more than I do.

I don’t think my dad has been able to rest for two years now. I broke his heart, and that cripples me. My mom can’t talk about it to her friends, and when the conversation comes up, it seems as if she’s almost a shell of herself. My career was peaking, and that too has just stopped. 

It took me months to be able to listen to music again, and sometimes it still triggers me. 

I went through months of agony and physical therapy for my back. It didn’t compete with the emotional pain I was in, and I wanted to die. I felt as if I deserved the pain I was in, dying would have been too easy. I deserved to suffer.

I lost touch with my friends, didn’t know what to say, didn’t want to partake in surface level conversation, and didn’t really want to talk at all. I was a terrible friend during this time, yet they are the best friends a girl could ask for. They never gave up, and they are still here for me.

A few days after the tragedy I checked myself into a dual diagnostic rehab. I was completely broken inside. The love I had for myself was gone. 

I wandered the halls of Futures Recovery lost, wishing, and praying with all my heart to just die. I didn’t deserve to live if Jeff Larson didn’t. I was buried beneath rock bottoms and many basements. I was drowning in grief, sorrow, regret, anger, remorse, darkness, and suicide ideation. But I learned that if it were God’s plan for me to be dead, it would have happened April 22, 2022, around 10:30 at night.

I still am struggling with the fact that God has a divine purpose for my life. My earthly mission is not complete. And with this, I have learned some beautiful things. There is no such thing as asking God for too much. As humans, we are prone to wander, venture, and explore. God pursues us even into the darkest places no matter what monsters lie there or how many locked doors, towers, or prison gates there are. 

God delights in answering our “impossible” prayers. He answers prayers in different ways. He opens doors and sends specific people into our lives at exact moments. He has given me some of the best people to simply love me in my brokenness. Jesus uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. I have learned that time is the greatest gift of life. It is something we can only give and never get back. Someone spending time with me means more than any materialistic gift I could receive. 

I have always been a fixer wanting to fix something or someone. I have learned I can’t fix anyone, but I can just be with them.

I have learned true, unshakable love. My parents have loved me through my longest, toughest days. I have not laughed in 725 days. I love to laugh, and my mom knows that laughter has been nonexistent in my life. So, what does this amazing, God fearing lady do anytime I talk to her? She tells me funny stories. She acts goofy. She does everything she can to make me laugh. My dad constantly encourages my competitive nature and matches my sense of humor, because he knows it makes me happy. 

This is the type of unrelenting love God wants us to have for each other. My parents constantly provide me with security and love. They pray for me every day. I’ve learned there is nothing greater.

I have learned that you can experience grief and gratitude at the same time. You can be broken yet filled. You can be lost yet have purpose. You can be hurting yet happy and hopeful.

I don’t know how to deal with the pain without God. I haven’t figured out how to forgive myself, but God has already forgiven me. I’ve learned that I don’t have it all figured out, but I know a God who does. I don’t know why this happened to me, but God has a perfect plan to use this for good. 

I will spend the rest of my living for Jeff Larson, advocating, and helping people. I have to live with myself for the rest of my life, so all I can hope is I continue to grow, mature, and better myself. I hope one day I can make myself proud. My biggest goal, is that one day when I reach those pearly gates, that God looks at me and smiles at me, and says “It’s been a long journey, my child, welcome home.” 2 Corinthians 4:17-18