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Your life can change in a split second – irrevocably and resolutely. It’s not a thought we dwell on as we race through endless busy days. It was not a thought Canadian Football League (CFL) hero Terry Evanshen entertained in his first life. When Evanshen’s body was catapulted backward through his jeep window one shining July evening in 1988, he no longer knew what ‘time’ was. He no longer knew who he was. By 1988, Evanshen, a CFL Hall of Famer, had come a long way from the slum near Montreal where he was raised with 12 siblings. With a brilliant 14-year career as a wide receiver behind him, he had a Grey Cup ring, a second successful career as a salesman, a loving wife, Lorraine, three beautiful daughters and an 1867 heritage home and horse farm in Brooklin, northeast of Toronto. Driving home to fire up the barbecue that night, Evanshen was looking forward to telling his family about a recent, highly successful business trip in Europe. A van racing through a red light broke his reverie with the force of a small bomb. T-boned at an intersection, Evanshen’s jeep flew in the air, landed and rolled. The impact ripped his seatbelt from its hoist and propelled him backward through the rear window. His shattered body lay face down and motionless on the roadside, his skin ‘as blue as jeans.’ Two weeks and numerous operations later, Evanshen emerged from a deep and puzzling coma with absolutely no memory of his first 44 years.Three severe complications had conspired against him. The velocity of the crash had battered his brain against his skull (called diffuse axonal injury or DAI) killing millions of brain cells. Oxygen deprivation due to a crushed left chest, broken ribs and a collapsed lung, destroyed millions of message sending neurons, and he suffered frontal lobe damage. Left with retrograde amnesia (permanent loss of long-term memory) and impaired short-term memory, Evanshen’s life became a virtual clean slate. “I didn’t know my wife and children. I didn’t know what marriage was or a kiss or a hug. I just existed,” he said. “I was like a two-year-old. I had to relearn toilet training, how to walk, talk and tie my shoes. I was back at ground zero.” Reprogramming himself to learn basic life tasks over and over again was a major struggle. But the frontal lobe is the control centre of concentration, memory and behavior.For years, those closest to him, Lorraine and the children, learned a lot about tolerance, patience and persistence in coping with a man they no longer recognized. Irritable, rude, impatient and indifferent, he was at times, out of control and prone to fits of rage and depression. He no longer had a sense of humour, and gone, seemingly forever, was his caring, affectionate, sensitive nature. “I was in a fog. I didn’t care about anything,” he said “I would yell ‘don’t tell me what to do.’ I didn’t even know I was yelling. If it wasn’t for the love of my family, I’d be in a psychiatric ward.”Evanshen largely credits his wife, Lorraine, with keeping him sane and on a forward path. “She is 100 per cent my safety net,” he attests.As the years went by, through repetition, he made progress as his brain began retaining habitual daily tasks. But he still can’t store the episodic memories of his life for longer than a few days. He uses sticky notes to remind himself of the Ws — what, where, when and why — when he’s going about his day. But Evanshen’s enormous drive for success and fearlessness was inborn from his scrappy childhood in a tough neighborhood, and largely contributed to his success on the football field. That part of him somehow survived, and he refused to give up trying to regain as much of his former self as he could. He began giving motivational talks in the late 1990’s entitled “Seize the Day’ with the help of small cardboard prompting cards he held in his hand. He still delivers these talks to this day. A charismatic speaker, he touches his audience with his honesty and tremendous will to survive. Acclaimed Canadian author, the late June Callwood’s 29th Book ‘The Man Who Lost Himself,’ chronicles Evanshen’s agonizing, heroic and fascinating triumph over brain damage and total memory loss. It was made into a TV movie of the same name starring David James Elliott of Jag fame, and later sold to the Lifetime network which distributed it to more than 20 countries. Every time it airs, Evanshen receives e-mails from admiring fans around the world. “What still defined him was his courage and determination to succeed – his unwillingness to conceive failure,” Callwood noted during her book tour with Evanshen in 2000. “He’s impatient and very tough on himself, but he’s more and more in control.”Callwood admitted she almost turned down the challenge of writing about Evanshen’s journey. “I declined the offer at first,” she said. “I didn’t know if I could write a book about a man with no memory. But I realized I had to try to understand. It was my challenge as a journalist.” These days there are few outward clues of his bitter, desperate struggle to find himself. He looks perhaps 50, but he’s 64, and works out regularly at the gym to maintain his physique. He enjoys doting on his five grandchildren who call him ‘papa.’ He still cannot talk about the loss of his youngest daughter, Jennifer, 21, in 2001 to a brain tumour that rendered her blind in her last days but he has come to accept it. Reflecting on his life, Evanshen acknowledges that given his injuries, he should have died in the accident — his thin thread — but he believes he’s still here for a reason — to help others through their own struggles and to inspire them to always reach higher.“I was meant to live,” he says simply. “I have no regrets about living on. I entertain possibilities in each person. I ask them ‘are you really the best you can be for yourself and those around you?’ I live like each day like it’s my last and remind others how little we appreciate our time. The good Lord has given us today — forget about tomorrow. Enjoy each and every moment.” Comment on this story on our public message board |
