Thirty-five years ago, on September 15th, 1983, after an evening of heavy, binge drinking, my friends and I returned to Van de Kamps to pick up a coat—left behind in a rush to leave work for a night in the bars. With seven doubles aboard—drinks made extra stiff by a playful barmaid—I had already blacked out while still at the bar. I don't remember going berserk in the bakery—swearing at and punching fellow bakers and overturning equipment in the area I had just cleaned earlier in the evening. Neither do I remember running pell-mell outside, heading towards the Mercer Street onramp that led to Interstate-5. Nor do I remember my friend, Doug, chasing me down, catching me by the hand, only to have me slip away and charge down Valley street toward Yale, when I suddenly tripped and fell, hitting my head against the curb.

My friends rushed me to the University of Washington Hospital, where they discovered I had a severe head injury—five bleeds in my brain, one of which was in my speech center. Dr. Loeser, the head of the Neurology Department at the U.W. Hospital, said to me, "I don't think you're going to live, Grant—but if you do, you'll never speak again." That head injury woke me up! During one of those nights in the U.W. Hospital, I gave away my life back into the wounded hands of Jesus.

Now thirty-five years later, diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer in the bone, on January 15th of this year, I found myself back on the corner of Valley and Yale. I hadn't been back to that corner, nor to that curb since my head injury. During those years of my wild and reckless living, I never imagined living past twenty-five or twenty-six years old.

Now able to speak, I am unable to communicate to you how grateful I am to God for each year, each day, each moment I've had since that night of drinking gone bad, since those years of a life gone bad. Thirty-five years ago, God gave me back my life at the corner of Valley and Yale; now I'm hoping and praying that He'll do it again!