Kyle Hepp

July 6, 2009

Remember how I announced that we were leaving on our trip? Well, we were planning on traveling in Peru in July until we left for the U.S. on July 21st. So, we gave up our lease on our apartment. Then, remember how I got hit by a car so we ended up having to postpone our trip while I recovered? Long story short, we ended up with no apartment in Santiago for the month of July. So we are living in Algarrobo in the house that my in-laws built here. They’re not here, they live in Santiago and only come on the weekends in the summertime. It’s middle of winter so we have the house to ourselves right now. Anyway, in Algarrobo we are without internet and will be living here until we leave for the U.S. For now, if you’ve emailed me, please be patient. I actually wrote this post on my computer without internet and am just now uploading it at an internet cafe.

The other day we went to go meet up with the driver who hit me. It was weird. The kid and his family remembered my name, googled me, found this website and got in touch with me via email right after the accident.

We agreed to meet at Starbucks, and I knew he was planning on coming with his mom and dad as well. I didn’t really know why they wanted to meet up, but I was extremely nervous. One of two possible scenarios had me freaked out — that they either weren’t going to apologize or that they would start in on whether or not he ran a red light and I knew that both of those two things would make me angry to the point of totally losing it. So I had S. and my mother in law come with me to moderate things if they were going to take a bad turn. I knew that I wouldn’t be a big enough person to take the higher ground once we started arguing about whether or not he ran a red light so I told them that if the topic came up, they were in charge of saying, We have to go, so I could get up and leave with my dignity intact.

S. dropped us off while he went to go park and we were thinking we were probably there before them. Plus, I had no idea what the kid looked like. S. had met him at the hospital when I was in the ICU unit and he came to see how I was doing. The first time S. had told him to go to hell, but then he came back (brave, I give him kudos for that) and their second meeting had been more cordial. Anyway, I thought that I wouldn’t be able to find him in Starbucks until S. came in and pointed out who he was. However, he saw me coming and ran to open the door. As soon as he looked me in the eyes, I knew it was him. He looked like he had lost a lot of sleep over the accident and I also saw some relief in his eyes too. Even though he knew that I was going to make a full recovery, it must have been some relief for him to have seen it with his own two eyes.

*For the rest of the post I am going to refer to him as GFTA (Guy From The Accident) because I don’t want to write down his real name but referring to him as him is getting too confusing.

We got our coffees and then went to sit down. GFTA had brought along his girlfriend, then plus as I had mentioned, his mom and dad came too. For that reason I’m even more glad that S. and his mom came with me, as I was even more nervous once I saw all those people. I was just scared because I wasn’t sure how they were going to react to me since they thought he had a green light would they be mad and blame me for all this trouble, would they treat me like a stupid rich gringa? I just didn’t know how to act or what to wear. I mean, what do you say when you meet the guy who ran you over? There’s no chapter in any style book about that topic.

At first, we were all tentative. Fortunately GFTA’s mom and dad are extremely nice guy and they and S’s mom made conversation for all of us. Then we all relaxed a little bit and just chatted. They were mostly curious about why I was in Chile, what I was doing here, what my life was like. They had seen this website, read the blog a little bit, a knew a lot about me already. We talked about every topic under the sun except the accident. It was the most GIANT elephant in the room I have ever had a conversation around.  :) I kept wanting to giggle when I remembered why we were all there.

When we finally did talk about that fateful Sunday evening that I went for a jog and ended up in the emergency room, I got pretty emotional. GFTA was talking about what happened from his perspective and again, it was like I was seeing it all happen to someone else and feel so bad for that girl. As Eileen mentioned, itâ’s like I was feeling empathy for myself. Very strange. I cried.

Then when he was done talking they asked if I had anything to say. I didn’t really, I’m not mad, I don’t know why, but I never was. I did tell GFTA about what we’re doing for Marcelo and say that if he takes one thing away from all of this, I hope he’ll keep his eyes open and help people whenever he can. I already talked about it on the blog a little, and yes, make fun of me all you want, but I am still convinced that I’m alive because I have more good things to do for people on this Earth. Ever since I got ran over I’ve been more sure of that and more motivated to create the Marcelo Foundation to help people who can’t afford it go to university. If GFTA is a little bit inspired to do some good deeds and I’m inspired to work a little harder towards that goal, then maybe I can help myself make sense of it all and think of that as the reason behind all this.

After everything, I think the meeting was good for me, and hopefully good for GFTA. When it was over I wrote him an email (because I was too shy to say all these things in person with so many people around) to tell him that I forgave him. Just being able to say, or in this case, write, “I forgive you,” was a tremendous weight off my shoulders. I didn’t want to carry around resentment or anger toward a person that I didn’t even know, without being able to resolve it or feel closure, and it certainly wouldn’t be good for GFTA to carry guilt around either. Hopefully he can learn from this incident will be able to leave it in the past. I would like to be able to do the same. The meeting also confirmed my decision not to sue. Countless people have told me that I’m making a terrible mistake not to, lawyers told me that we would win “si o si” and friends told me, “You need to teach him a lesson!” But after talking to him, I definitely feel like I did the right thing. He’s a good person, he feels bad, I think he’s taking something away from all of this. What would suing him and involving both our families in a long and painful court case really achieve? Nothing.

The day after the meeting with GFTA and his family, I took my first steps up stairs like a normal person, that is, right leg, then left leg or vice versa. This is significant because up until then I hadn’t been able to lift my left leg to up stairs and because I honestly think that a big part of the healing process is mental. And just knowing that everything was resolved with GFTA (he knows that I don’t hate him, and he and his family don’t hate me), like I said was a huge weight off my shoulders. I feel better emotionally and I think that that is helping me physically as well.

In a completely unexpected twist of events, I really liked GFTA and his girlfriend. We got along great, and I think if I were younger or they were older they’re people I would’ve been friends with. As it is, in the words of GFTA’s mom, You two are linked for forever now. And we might be. During the meeting GFTA mentioned multiple times that he really liked my photography. So who knows maybe someday when they’re going to get married GFTA and his girlfriend will be looking for a photographer and he’ll think,Hey! That girl I ran over back in the day is a good photographer, I should call her. I hope he does.