My Aunt Lilly is an inspiration to me by being one of the strongest people I have ever met. She has grey hair and brown eyes, and always has a smile on her face. “I won’t stop until I get it”. This is what she said to herself when her situation got tough. Month after month, hospital after hospital, she is still the same silly aunt she was before the car accident. Nothing can dampen the spirit of this amazing woman.

It was an average day when a terrible thing happened. I remember my mom answering the phone and panicking. It was my uncle, informing her that her sister; Lilly, had gotten in a car accident. We rushed to the Condell hospital. I was young; only twelve years old.  I wasn’t familiar with hospitals, so I didn’t know what the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) was or why we were going.  We walked into a private waiting room, filled with my family. Most of them were crying. My uncle was telling everyone what had happened. My aunt had been in a car crash and it was such a bad accident that she had to be flown in a helicopter immediately to the ICU. I was told she was unconscious and badly injured. I had no idea if she would be okay and that terrified me. The nurses were really nice to me and my young cousins, offering us ice cream and sandwiches from the break room. Then they asked if we wanted to see her. I said no, because I knew she would look very hurt and I would cry again, but my sisters went in her hospital room. It was already 9:00 pm, and my aunt hadn’t woken up yet. My mother decided we should leave and come back tomorrow. The next day, she was still unconscious.

Two weeks later, my aunt woke up. Unless you were family, you weren’t allowed in her room. She couldn’t speak or move her body when I came in to see her. She was hooked up to IVs and machines. My aunt looked so tired, closing her eyes every so often and breathing slowly. I was accompanied by my sister Megan and her husband, Robbie. We said hi to her. And although she couldn’t speak, she was already making jokes. She mouthed the words and Megan and Robbie laughed. It made me happy that she was being herself, and it amazed me that she even could. After a little while, the doctors had inserted a trac in her throat, which is a device that would help her to speak until she could do it on her own. Sure enough, when it was inserted, my aunt was being her silly self again.

Over a few months or so, my aunt slowly began to get better. She struggled with her back brace as well as her lungs. She could move her arms, but not her legs, and she could speak on her own. I didn’t know what paraplegic meant, but that’s what the doctors said my aunt was. It meant that she wasn't able to move the lower half of her body. My grandma had so much hope that she would be able to, but my aunt never moved her legs. I don’t remember why, but my aunt had to move to a different hospital. It was called Holy Family and far away from my house. No matter where she moved, we still visited almost every day. The waiting room there was small, with only three couches, a coffee table, and a few lamps. She had a room to herself, which was fairly large. We spent Christmas there. After another few months, she moved hospitals again to RIC in Chicago. Here she began physical therapy. I liked this hospital because the nurses were really nice. My aunt struggled with panic attacks most of the time, but she was able to learn how to calm herself down. At RIC she began learning how to move around in a wheelchair and move herself from the chair to a bed, and back. My brother helped her do this as well.

After another few months ( a total of 6 ),my aunt was back home. She was very happy to see her dogs again and be out of the hospitals. It took a while for her to get used to the wheelchair, reaching for things, and moving in and out of bed, but she got the hang of it. I go over to see her when I can, and she is always cheery and smiling. She can do anything a person without a wheelchair can do, basically. She cleans, cooks, even goes out. She continues cutting people’s hair as she did before the accident. She’s still the gossip girl she was before the accident, and I’m forever amazed that she hasn’t given up or called it quits. Since then, she just picked herself back up and kept trying.

My aunt is amazing. She never gave up, and that’s something you would have to have a lot of strength and determination to do. My aunt is a big inspiration to me, and she is my hero.