A month into seventh grade, my twin and I tiptoed into the hospital room to see Dad for the first time after his hang gliding accident. He was leaning against a sterile white pillow in a raised hospital bed facing us as we came in, appearing suddenly broken. The first thing I noticed were the bruises the colors of fallen autumn leaves which garnished his once healthy face. A black patch over his left eye hid the recent brain damage and part of his face smashed caused from the 100 foot descent through Dog Mountain’s towering fir trees, even forcing one of his eyeballs to rotate inward. He smiled when he saw us, but it was frail, and he looked like a foreigner. Prior to the injury, he worked as a systems engineer for thirty-plus years, and the job required him to be organized, demanding, and precise, ensuring that all the components involved would work together in confidential military projects. Here, the bedside chart documented his fragmented state, marking a permanent disability which would force the family into a new dimension: "Post-head-injury, altered mental state, verbal speech is present, however incomprehensible, upper torso tremor, and immobilized left arm." Trauma, which couldn’t be seen on the surface, included, "reduced ability to smell, some hearing loss, affected balance, reduced strength and short-term memory loss.” The doctor mentioned Dad’s upcoming hospital discharge scheduled for some time shortly after the New Year causing naive excitement to permeate the air. It would take a miracle to recover from this hard fall back to earth.