Broken Wings Still Fly:

When I was a child, I used to marvel at the birds that soared above our village. They looked so free, so effortless in their flight. My grandmother would point at them and say, “Even the smallest bird knows how to rise against the wind.”

But somewhere along the way, I forgot that.

Life has a way of clipping your wings without warning.

For me, it happened three years ago. I was driving to work early one winter morning — a day like any other — when a truck ran a red light and slammed into my car. Everything went black.

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a hospital bed. My whole body ached, and I couldn’t feel my legs. The doctor stood at my bedside with a look of pity and delivered the words that would change my life:

"You’ve suffered a severe spinal injury. We’ll do what we can… but you may never walk again."

At first, I thought I could handle it. I tried to smile when my parents visited, tried to act strong when my friends called. But inside, I was crumbling. Every night when the lights went out, I would cry quietly into my pillow, wishing I hadn’t survived that crash.

The hospital became my prison. Every day, nurses came in to help me bathe, to change my sheets, to prop me up in bed. I hated looking at myself in the mirror — weak, helpless, broken.

People tried to comfort me. “You’re lucky to be alive,” they said. “You’re so strong.”

But I didn’t feel strong.

I felt like a bird with shattered wings, staring at a sky I could no longer reach.

Months passed. Therapists came and went, teaching me how to use a wheelchair, coaxing me through exercises that felt pointless. Friends slowly stopped visiting. Their lives moved on while mine stood still.

One afternoon, during a particularly grueling session, I broke down.

“I can’t do this,” I sobbed, tears running down my face.

My therapist, a kind woman named Angela, knelt beside me.

“You don’t have to do everything today,” she said gently. “Just… do what you can. That’s enough for now.”

Her words stayed with me. That night, lying awake in my hospital room, I thought about the birds I used to watch as a child. I remembered one summer when I found a baby bird that had fallen from its nest. Its tiny wing was bent at an odd angle, clearly broken. I had cradled it in my hands and thought for sure it would die.

But it didn’t.

Weeks later, after we fed it and cared for it, the little bird hobbled to the edge of the porch, stretched its mangled wing, and leapt into the air. It didn’t fly perfectly. But it flew.

That memory lit a small spark in me.

The next morning, I told Angela, “I want to try again.”

It wasn’t easy. Every step of progress was painfully slow. At first, I couldn’t even sit up without help. Then I learned to transfer myself from the bed to the chair. Then I learned to wheel myself across the room.

On the hardest days, when my arms trembled and my shoulders ached, I repeated to myself:

Broken wings still fly.

After six months, they released me from the hospital. The outside world felt overwhelming — the noise, the people, the stairs and doors that weren’t built for someone like me. But I kept moving forward, one small victory at a time.

I enrolled in a local support group for people with spinal injuries. There, I met others who understood what I was going through. Some had regained the ability to walk with braces. Some never did. But all of them were fighting — fighting to live, to laugh, to fly in their own way.

I started painting again, something I hadn’t done in years. It was clumsy at first — my hands shook, and I ruined more canvases than I completed. But little by little, the colors began to return to my life.

Two years after the accident, I entered a local art contest. I painted a bird — a small sparrow with one wing clearly broken, but still soaring above the trees. The judges awarded me first place.

When I wheeled up to accept the ribbon, I looked out at the audience and saw Angela in the crowd, smiling through tears.

That night, I hung the painting above my bed. Every time I look at it, I remember that baby bird. I remember the sound of its wings, clumsy but determined, rising against the wind.

I still can’t walk. Maybe I never will.

But I can fly.

In ways I never thought possible, I’ve learned that we are more than the things that happen to us. We are more than our brokenness.

Life will break your wings sometimes — through heartbreak, loss, failure, pain.

But broken wings still fly.

And so can you.