After 25 years of caring for children, first as a nurse, then as a pediatrician, Carolyn Roy-Bornstein finds herself on the other side of the stretcher when her 17-year-old son Neil is hit by a teenage drunk driver while walking his girlfriend Trista home after a study date. Trista did not survive her injuries. Neil carries his with him to this day. Grief at everything Neil has lost, gratitude that he has survived, ultimately give way to grace. Celebrating all Neil has accomplished with his brain injury instead of focusing on all he lost because of it; that is grace. Dealing with the hand we have been dealt and making our own meaning: that is grace. Grace as acceptance. Grace as gratitude. Grace as new meaning for a changed life.
Caitlin Flanagan, author of Girl Land and To Hell with All That says, “Crash is a powerful book. It speaks to us on the most human and humane levels about love, family, healing, and renewal. Written by a physician mother, it puts the horror of a roadside accident into the contexts of familial terror and doctorly wisdom. It is a consequential book, one I read in two straight nights and which resonated with me for a long time afterward. Read it—I was blown away.”
Publishers Weekly called it “a remarkable testament exploring one family’s journey through a medical nightmare and a new beginning.”