Beyond the Bear: How I Learned to Live and Love Again after Being Blinded by a Bear
Dan Bigley, Debra McKinney
Language: English
Pages: 224
ISBN: 1493016423
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A 25-year-old backcountry wanderer, a man happiest exploring wild places with his dog, Dan Bigley woke up one midsummer morning to a day full of promise. Before it was over, after a stellar day of salmon fishing along Alaska’s Kenai and Russian rivers, a grizzly came tearing around a corner in the trail. Dan barely had time for “bear charging” to register before it had him on the ground, altering his life forever.
“Upper nose, eyes, forehead anatomy unrecognizable,” as the medevac report put it.
Until then, one thing after another had fallen into place in Dan’s life. He had a job he loved taking troubled kids on outdoor excursions. He had just bought a cabin high in the Chugach Mountains with a view that went on forever. He was newly in love. After a year of being intrigued by a woman named Amber, they had just spent their first night together. All of this was shattered by the mauling that nearly killed him, that left him blind and disfigured.
Facing paralyzing pain and inconceivable loss, Dan was in no shape to be in a relationship. He and Amber let each other go. Five surgeries later, partway into his long healing journey, they found their way back to each other. The couple’s unforgettable story is one of courage, tenacious will, and the power of love to lead the way out of darkness. Dan Bigley’s triumph over tragedy is a testament to the ability of the human spirit to overcome physical and emotional devastation, to choose not just to live, but to live fully. Visit Dan Bigley's site or Beyond the Bear.
Strip clubs with some other dude three feet off my left elbow. As turned off as I was, the mind-blowing number of fish had me salivating. It was the Serengeti of the freshwater world. After my initiation, I usually made an effort to ditch the throngs by hiking into the Russian River’s upper valley. Yet over time, as absurd as it was, I started getting a kick out of combat fishing. I grew to appreciate the social scene and sense of community, with the exception of the occasional dipshit, since.
Teenager, I’d thought of birthdays as more than an excuse to party. To me, they were a time to reflect upon the gift of being alive. Among my most memorable celebrations was sitting at the edge of Half-Moon Rock, arms wrapped around my knees, watching the rising sun spread a golden glow across Kentucky’s Red River Gorge the day I turned nineteen. I spent my twenty-first in red-rock country near Sedona, Arizona, in a canyon of sandstone walls and emerald-green waters, camped out with friends,.
To stop now and then and give a little tug. Nope, I thought, I wouldn’t mind having this woman as a neighbor one bit. “It’s stunning up here,” she said at the end of the tour. “I can’t think of any place I’d rather live.” A silence settled over us as we stood side by side looking out at Denali, then down on the city, filling our lungs with the delicacy of mountain air. We turned to each other and locked eyes. I went all lightheaded. Time to go. I got Maya loaded up, and we headed down the.
I was more interested in watching a sunset than a movie, and was prone to sleeping in my truck in ski-area parking lots to get first crack at fresh powder. As we greeted each other, the ones who hadn’t seen me since the bear held onto me longer than others. With a growing number of revelers, we began training for the big day in earnest, starting the day with Bloody Marys and ending it with late-night feasts and jam sessions around the stone barbecue pit. I still grin when I think of my bachelor.
With some of the most severely emotionally disturbed kids in the state. On the home front, Alden had been doing such a stellar job of teaching me the ways of the blind dad that I had some tricks by the time Acacia joined us in July. Mastering the art of the diaper change was not one of them. At times, it was like trying to gift-wrap a flopping salmon in the dark. If we’re talking diaper blowout, my changing sessions typically culminated with a bath or shower for one or both of us. By then, I.