I used to think that strength was something you could see in the mirror—abs carved out at the gym, arms toned from pushing myself beyond the limit. I thought it was in the way I carried myself through crowds, chin high, smile sharp, unbothered by the noise of the world. Back then, my legs were my freedom. They carried me through marathons, up mountain trails, across cities I hadn’t even dreamed of visiting when I was a kid.
My name is Eva. I’m twenty-six, and until three weeks ago, I was invincible. Or so I thought.
The accident wasn’t cinematic. There was no dramatic crash, no screech of metal against metal that played in slow motion. Just one moment I was riding my bike down the hill—wind in my hair, the city lights flickering awake below me—and the next, I was on the ground. A car door, flung open without warning. My body, a rag doll spinning into the hard, unyielding pavement.
They say I was conscious when the ambulance arrived. I don’t remember that. I don’t remember my own screams, or the blood that painted the asphalt a cruel, vivid red. I only remember waking up in the ICU, the taste of metal in my mouth, and my mother’s hand on mine, trembling.
I knew before they told me. I could feel it—an absence, a strange phantom itch where my left leg used to be. My right leg was still there but mangled so badly they had to fight to save it. Tubes and machines surrounded me, beeping in sync with my ragged breath.
When the doctor came in, he looked at me with eyes that tried to be gentle but couldn’t hide the truth. “Eva, we had to amputate your left leg above the knee. Your right leg… we’ve done our best. You’re alive.”
Alive. The word thudded in my skull like an accusation. I was alive—but was I still me?
The first time they sat me up, I vomited. The pain was so bright, so searing, it felt like my entire body was on fire. I screamed at the nurse, at my mother, at God—if He was even listening. I wanted them to undo it, to give me back the part of me that made me who I was. But the room stayed the same. My leg did not grow back. My mother’s tears were real.
Days bled into each other like bad watercolor. Nurses in soft shoes came and went. Friends visited with forced smiles and flowers that wilted on the window sill. My phone buzzed with messages I couldn’t bear to answer.
But it was the silence between all of that that got to me. Lying in that hospital bed at night, staring at the ceiling, I replayed it over and over. The door, the impact, the snap. I wondered if I could have swerved, if I should have seen it coming. If I’d been a second faster—or slower—maybe I’d still be whole.
Then there were the nights when I didn’t want to be whole anymore. I just wanted to disappear. I’d stare at my bandaged stump—ugly, swollen, stitched together like a cruel joke—and wish for the darkness to swallow me again. But every morning, the sun came up whether I wanted it to or not.
And then there was Nora.
Nora was my physical therapist. She walked into my room one morning with a clipboard, short hair spiked at the ends, bright green sneakers. She didn’t treat me like I was made of glass. She looked at my chart, then at me, and said, “So, Eva. You ready to work for it?”
I wanted to laugh in her face. Work for what? My leg was gone. My future—my races, my trails, my sprints up the stairs two at a time—was gone with it. But something in her eyes didn’t let me hide behind my anger.
“The sooner you start,” she said, “the sooner you stand up again. It won’t be pretty. It won’t be easy. But you’re still here. And that means something.”
The first time she swung my legs over the side of the bed, I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe. The stitches pulled, my skin felt like it was tearing from the inside. My mother sat in the corner, her hands clasped in her lap, her lips moving silently in prayer.
“Good,” Nora said when I was done sobbing. “That’s good. Pain means your body’s still talking to you.”
I hated her in that moment. Hated her for pretending this was something I could fix with grit and sweat like all my other challenges. But later, when she left, I found myself whispering to the empty room, “Thank you.”
Day by day, she made me sit. Then stand with support. Then balance on one leg while she held my arms. Every time I fell, she caught me. Every time I screamed, she didn’t flinch.
“You’re allowed to be angry,” she told me once while adjusting my crutches. “But don’t you dare give up. You survived for a reason.”
A reason. I didn’t know what it was yet. But maybe there was something left to fight for, even if I couldn’t see it through the haze of my pain.
One evening, after a brutal session that left me too exhausted to do anything but stare at the ceiling, my mother sat beside me and took my hand. Her eyes were puffy. She smelled like home—like the soup she’d sneak into my hospital room because the cafeteria food tasted like cardboard.
“I was so scared you wouldn’t wake up,” she said softly. “I prayed so many times for God to spare you. And now… you’re still here. Eva, that’s enough for me. But it has to be enough for you too.”
I wanted to tell her I wasn’t enough. Not anymore. That the girl she raised was gone the moment that door swung open. But instead, I pressed her hand to my cheek and let her hold me like I was still her little girl, whole or not.
That night, as the machines hummed around me, I made a promise—to myself, to Nora, to my mother, to the girl I used to be.
I would stand again. I would find out what it meant to be strong when everything that made me strong had been stripped away.
I would be more than what I’d lost.
The first time they brought the prosthetic leg to my room, I couldn’t look at it. It lay there on the table—strange, cold, not at all like the powerful limb I’d taken for granted all my life. I stared at the ceiling instead, counting the cracks above the hospital bed, pretending that if I ignored it long enough, it would disappear.
But it didn’t disappear. And neither did Nora.
She wheeled it closer and tapped her knuckles on the plastic. “Meet your new training partner,” she said, like it was just another pair of running shoes. She waited for me to say something, but my throat felt tight, my tongue heavy with all the words I didn’t know how to say.
Nora crouched beside my bed and rested her hand on mine. Her voice softened. “Eva, this isn’t to replace you. This is to remind you that you’re not finished yet. You ready?”
I wanted to say no. I wanted to scream at her that I didn’t want it, that no piece of metal and plastic could ever feel like mine. But deep down, beneath the ache and bitterness, something small flickered—something like defiance. So I nodded, just once.
The first time I put it on, I felt like a broken doll—clumsy, unnatural, unsure where my body ended and this new thing began. The prosthetist, a kind man named Sam, helped strap it on, explaining every buckle, every adjustment.
“It’ll feel wrong at first,” he said, tightening the harness around my thigh. “Your brain’s going to panic because it can’t feel what it used to. But trust me—your body learns.”
He looked me in the eyes as he said it, and for a second, I wanted to believe him.
Standing was worse than sitting. My muscles, already thin from weeks in bed, trembled under my weight. Nora stood behind me, hands hovering near my shoulders like invisible wings.
“Weight on the good leg first,” she said. “Shift slowly. Feel the ground. Don’t think about walking. Just stand.”
The first time I tried, I collapsed into her arms before I could even straighten my back. I buried my face in her shoulder, hot tears slipping down my cheeks.
“I can’t,” I whispered.
“Yes, you can,” she shot back, so quick, so fierce it startled me. She pulled back, made me look her in the eyes. “Not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But you can. And you will.”
Hours turned into days. Days bled into weeks. Each morning brought a new bruise, a new slip, a new small victory. The first time I stood on my own for more than ten seconds, Nora clapped so loud the nurses peeked in from the hallway.
When I managed two shaky steps between the parallel bars, my mother cried into her hands. Dad, who’d flown in from another state to be with us, squeezed my shoulder so hard I thought he’d leave a bruise. I didn’t mind. It reminded me I was still here.
But progress was cruel. One day I’d feel like I was flying—my body remembering what it was to be upright, to move forward—and the next day, a tiny misstep would send me crashing down.
One afternoon, I fell hard. The prosthetic slipped as I shifted my weight. I hit the mat with a sickening thud, breath knocked from my lungs. I heard my mother gasp. Nora was beside me in seconds.
I wanted to scream. To rip the leg off, throw it across the room, and crawl back to bed where the world couldn’t see how weak I’d become. I slammed my fist against the floor. My vision blurred with hot, helpless tears.
Nora didn’t tell me to get up right away. She sat beside me, legs crossed, waiting until my sobs turned into hiccups.
“You know what I see when you fall, Eva?” she asked gently.
I didn’t answer.
“I see someone fighting gravity when gravity wants to win. I see someone who’s still here. You didn’t stay down. You don’t get it yet, but that’s the strongest thing you’ve ever done.”
Nights were the hardest. The phantom pain—sharp, burning, like my missing limb was still screaming at me—kept me awake. Some nights I’d bite my lip so hard I tasted blood, just to keep from waking my mother. Other nights, she’d find me curled up on the bathroom floor, cold tiles soothing the fire under my skin.
On those nights, I let her hold me. I let her whisper all the things mothers whisper when they can’t take the pain away. Sometimes she’d fall asleep sitting against the wall, my head in her lap, like when I was a child sick with fever.
And then, one morning, the pain eased for the first time in weeks. It didn’t vanish, but it didn’t crush me either. It was like my body had decided to forgive itself, to let me try again.
So I did.
A month later, they discharged me. Walking out of the hospital wasn’t graceful—each step a careful negotiation with the ground, every muscle trembling with the effort to keep me upright—but I walked. Outside, the sun hit my face like a blessing I’d forgotten I’d missed.
My father wheeled my suitcase behind me, cracking jokes to hide his tears. My mother walked ahead, her phone out, filming every shaky step as if I were a toddler taking my first strides.
When I reached the curb, I turned to look back at the hospital. So much of my anger, my grief, my fear had stayed inside those walls. I wanted to leave it there.
I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling my heart—still wild, still desperate, still mine.
Now, at home, the real work begins. I’ve traded hospital walls for my small apartment, my hospital bed for the couch where I sleep because stairs still terrify me. I learn to navigate the kitchen on crutches, to balance my coffee cup while my right leg trembles under me. Some days, I hate every second of it. Other days, I feel the flicker of something I thought I’d lost: hope.
Nora still checks in. “Don’t stop,” she says over the phone, her voice fierce as ever. “Every step you take is one more step they said you’d never make.”
Last night, I dreamed I was running. Not just walking—running, like I used to on Sunday mornings before the city woke up. I could feel the wind in my hair, my breath in my chest, the rhythm of my feet—both feet—pounding the pavement. And when I woke up, I didn’t cry. I smiled.
Because maybe someday, I’ll run again. Maybe not the same way. Maybe not as fast. But in my mind, in my heart, I’m already there—moving forward, piece by piece, step by step.
I’m still here. And that’s enough for today.