I forgot to post this one last night, but I got to meet an amazing woman on the hike yesterday. She told this story on the drive up to the trailhead. Years ago, she was training for a half-marathon as she was approaching 40 and didn’t want to waste away.
Well, one day she was driving with her husband and got t-boned by a semi truck on the freeway. Her seat belt snapped from the force, but not before it was able to break the bones underneath it. She was born with only a single lung, which was punctured. Her vehicle was flattened. The first-responders, using the jaws of life, took care of her husband first since she was obviously dead from her mangled appearance.
She spent about a year in the hospital, and when she went home, it was in a wheelchair. She could not walk for seven years. Once she was able to take her first steps, she started living her life again. She would be able to walk from her car to the electric grocery carts to do her shopping, but no more.
Then she saw a sign on a building advertising “Therapuetic Yoga” and she gave it a try. The deep stretches and slow movements and the feeling afterward got her hooked. From there, she tried a new yoga style every six to twelve months to get the benefits from each depending on her need. Today, about eight years from her new first step, she does Bikram Hot Yoga, mostly. She walked a little slower on the downhill part of the hike than the rest of us, but she was one of the first to make it back up to the vehicles.
Her story was very inspiring to me and a testament to the good that yoga can do with the right attitude.
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