Introduction: (6 min.) Read to you by Cindi Lamb ©

I cannot believe a drunk driver did this to my little girl.

I cannot believe a drunk driver ripped the dashboard out of our truck and used it to bash Laura on the back of her tiny neck.  At that moment, all of her skin went numb and her muscles stopped moving.  Laura was motionless from the bottom of her neck, down. Eventually, slowly, Laura regained some movement of her right arm down to her wrist. She learned to maneuver that arm just enough to push the joystick forward on her electric wheelchair. 

She was hell on wheels! And I am forever grateful for that.

We were just going to the grocery store on a Saturday morning for God sake!  It wasn't even noon! I was smiling and talking and cooing with Laura and I tapped the top of her baby hand as we drove through horse country on Rt. 26, just outside of Mt. Pleasant.  "Laura, guess what?" I told her.  "You'll have those long, gorgeous legs like your Daddy when you grow up and you would look great on a horse!" She was listening to me, I know it. She smiled at me and wrapped her tender fingers around my thumb and

and that was the last time she felt anything with her fingers.

I cannot believe that Laura did terrific Nixon impressions, furrowing her brow, shaking her head side to side and saying "I am not a crook, Mommy" or that she loved to cover her trach and belt out Steve Perry's "Oh Sherrie, our love!" She could really sing!

I still cannot believe she was expelled from Battle Monument School (for half a day) after she "accidently bumped" (ran over) a little boy with her electric wheelchair because "He called me the b-word Mommy," she cried in the corner.  I had a hard time keeping a straight face talking with the principle who was quite awesome about the whole thing. (The little boy was fine, btw.)

I also cannot believe this drunk driver poured daily streams of beer and vodka and other drugs down my throat to help me blunt my brain and black out my crushed heart for over 20 years. I hated him for self-medicating me like that.

On the day of the crash, November 10, 1979, I was 24 years old. I never saw any of this coming, I mean, who would? Who could even imagine having a perfectly perfect baby daughter one minute, and literally, having a quadriplegic five-month-old baby daughter the next?

Now I'm 70. I didn't see any of these things coming either:

• forty-one years of sex lessons
• three husbands
• two revenge attempts
• forgiveness
• one life-after-life event
• rheumatoid disease
• the deaths of my daughter Laura Lamb, my Dad, Harold "Popcorn" Bush, my brother Steve Bush and my husband Ray Manns.
• one big "Invasion of the God Snatcher" moment, wow!
• six months after Ray died, I married his best friend, Gordon Wiley (people still be talkin' about that!)

Nope, didn't see any of that stuff coming, for sure.

Folks often ask, "God, Cindi, how do you keep such a positive attitude after all this?" 

And I tell them, "I start drinking early in the morning, smoke pot in the afternoon, and have great sex at night!"

Everyone laughs! But there's some truth in that bawdy statement (except I don't drink early in the morning anymore - HA). More on this later.

There's a bunch of stuff here to unpack, to scrutinize, and judge. That's OK, I'm kinda used to it.  There's lots of stuff that I find hysterically funny, but you may not.  That's OK too. I'm writing these stories because some of them may be helpful in boosting your capacity for hopefulness.  This is not to say altruism is my goal here, because it is not.  But I am here to say you can take a bath in a turd tub and still come out shiney! HAHAHA!!!  

I hope you can find time to read or listen to these stories and that you find them enlightening, encouraging, and entertaining.

I'm so grateful you are here,

Cindi