Five weeks ago, Dilynn’s life split cleanly in two — before the wreck and everything after.
“She was just going to get her hair done.”
“It was raining.”
“She never made it home.”
That’s how her mother, Jessica, describes the night that changed their family forever. Ordinary moments. Familiar roads. A drive made countless times — until suddenly, it wasn’t.
Dilynn is just 16 years old. She survived the crash — and that alone is a miracle. But survival came with devastating injuries, including traumatic brain injuries so severe that at one point, doctors told her parents they didn’t believe she would make it.
Today, Dilynn is still fighting.
She’s now at Shepherd Center, one of the nation’s leading rehabilitation hospitals, where she’s entered inpatient rehab — beginning the slow, exhausting work of relearning what her body once did without a second thought: moving, swallowing, focusing, being aware.
“She can’t tell us yet what she remembers,” her mom shared.
“But she turns toward our voices.”
“She makes eye contact.”
“She’s still there.”
Her days are packed with hours of physical, occupational, and speech therapy. Progress doesn’t come in leaps — it comes in inches. And every inch is celebrated like a victory.
Jessica says this journey has given her a message she never imagined she’d be sharing:
Life can change at a red light.
In rain.
In fog.
On a drive you’ve made a hundred times.
As Dilynn continues this long road back, her family is asking for prayers — and for people to pause, just for a moment, and hold their loved ones a little tighter.
So here’s the question Jessica asked me to pass along:
What would you want a 16-year-old fighting to get her life back — and the parents walking every step beside her — to know right now?
