Return to Hilo, June 11, 1999

Dear family and friends,

Aloha kakou!

We arrived back in Hilo on Tuesday.  Rahmat's slowly gaining back some strength in his lower body and can walk without a cane.  He'll wear a back brace for several more months while his reconstructed vertebrae mend. Two vertebrae in his middle back were crushed in the accident, so the surgeon fused four vertebrae together and put in titanium rods for support, too, using titanium rivets.  The surgeon used bone taken from Rahmat's pelvic area to rebuild the damaged vertebrae.

Rahmat only spent a few days in intensive care before being moved to a rehab ward in the Flagstaff Medical Center for occupational and physical therapy.  After ten days there, his doctor said he could continue his therapy as an outpatient. We made many friends, both from the staff and fellow "inmates" and Christian and Baha'i friends from the area, who brought flowers and other gifts to keep Rahmat's spirits up.  One Christian family in Flagstaff, who had heard about the accident, came to see Rahmat and offered me a room in their home which was a short 4 block commute to the hospital which I did each day in my wheelchair.  I became quite close to that family and found out on the last day of my stay with them that they had lost their four-year-old son in a bike/auto accident right in front of their home a few years before. 

Once Rahmat was able to travel from Arizona where the accident occurred, I rented a car and drove him to Albuquerque to be near his brother, Aman, and Linda's family in Isleta. We stopped near the site of the accident, outside of Winslow, Arizona on I-40 for prayers.  Rahmat had been a passenger with his roommate and his roommate's friend when his roommate, who was driving, dozed off going 70 mph; their old van literally flew across the median strip and nosedived about 100 feet away.  The youth had just finished their finals at Embry Riddle and were heading out for the summer vacation; Rahmat to his grandmother's home in Isleta, and the other two, nice Christian young men, to their homes in Colorado.  The van hit the

ground so hard that the doors had to be pried off by the rescue crews.  Rahmat was flown via helicopter to the trauma center in Flagstaff for immediate attention and life-saving surgery. 

The attending emergency physician called us (around 9 pm Hawaiian time, which meant it was around midnight in Flagstaff) and we even spoke to Rahmat briefly before he went into surgery that night.  I flew out the next morning and arrived almost exactly 24 hours later.  Aman had taken off from work in Albuquerque and was already with Rahmat.  The Baha'is of Flagstaff gave us lots of support, and one couple came to the hospital regularly to spend time with Rahmat.  Apparently just three weeks earlier a Baha'i university student from Texas had been killed in a car accident in the same area of I-40. 

From Arizona Rahmat received physical therapy at an Albuquerque Rehab hospital for three weeks.  We even fit in a mini-family reunion in Ruidoso for a few days.  Linda flew in fresh from her graduation ceremony at UHH in Hilo.  My folks came down from Colorado. Linda's mother joined us, too.

Brillana and son, Rúhu’lláh (now 1 and 1/2 years old), Bienshirni and son, Santiago (now 1 year old and walking), had coincidently come back from 5 months of Baha'i pioneering in Cusco, Peru, to see family and rest up a bit, so they also were present. 

Roshan, in route to Ecuador and Venezuela for the summer, changed her flight to spend a week with us; and Aman was even able to join us briefly during a break in the ongoing forest fires around New Mexico and Arizona.  He's working on the rappel crew for the helicopter-based fire fighters.  Brillana's husband, Kevin, couldn't join us due to his work schedule in Colorado.  And Athena, fresh from her pilgrimage with husband Aaron, had to stay in Hilo with her two children. 

With my parents and Roshan, I was even able to visit my dear Mescalero friend, Meredith Begay and her husband, Keith, while in Ruidoso.  It had been many years since I had seen that precious one, who had given me much spiritual nurturing in my early days as a Baha'i youth when I was drawn from my Colorado home to the Apache land of southern New Mexico.  Meredith now spends much of her day on a dialysis machine to keep her kidneys running smoothly, but that gentle, deep spirit still radiates from her being. Please remember her in your prayers.

Rahmat is registered to take a summer class at local Univ. of Hawaii at Hilo, and he expects to return to Prescott, Arizona this fall to resume his studies at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. 

It's hard to see him suffer; the back pain is almost always there, and he has a few other complications, but he has so far handled the sudden change in fate well and has even been able to keep up his good humor and his concern for others.

Your prayers are warmly appreciated. Thanks for your loving concern and messages.  They kept Linda's and my spirits up probably more than Rahmat's, who has stayed fairly calm and optimistic during his ordeal. 

Stay in touch and let us know how you are doing.

With loving regards,

Chris and family

June 11, 1999

Re