“Trust God to bring good out of everything,” is the premise Sandra Petersen lives by. The 81-year-old Australian lives purposefully on the island of Tasmania, working as a teacher and harvesting fresh organic produce from her glorious garden.
Seeing her now, one would never guess the heartbreak, turmoil, and abuse she’s been through. Beset by the multiple tragedies of suffering from a serious brain injury, losing her 23-year-old son, and enduring an abusive marriage, faith became her cornerstone in life.
Forty-six years ago, Ms. Petersen, originally from Queensland, was driving with her children when a huge truck carrying sand smashed directly into the driver’s door.
Flung out of the car, she landed on her back 100 meters away and was knocked unconscious. Her head was bleeding, and her shoes were dangling from her bare feet. Regaining consciousness and hearing her children’s screams coming from the now slow-moving vehicle, the desperate mom managed to drag herself back to the car and turn off the engine before collapsing again. Mercifully, the children were unharmed, but the mother didn’t fare so well.
After the ambulance took her to the hospital, doctors found a bad head injury, internal bleeding, and possible spinal damage. X-rays revealed a fractured sacrum and dislocated tailbone pulling on the spinal cord, which caused extreme pain whenever Ms. Petersen bent down, sat, or did basic tasks such as getting dressed.
“Unfortunately, at this time the hospital was understaffed and under-resourced,” Ms. Petersen said, explaining how she was discharged without proper treatment of her brain and spine, and with no follow-up care.
To make matters worse, rather than supporting Ms. Petersen through this tough time, her husband’s response was one of accusations and violence.
“He was very angry with me because of the inconvenience of [my] being injured and the car being wrecked,” she said.
Landing on her head had harmed the central fissure in her brain, which affected her bodily control; the occipital lobe, which affected her eyes; and the frontal lobe, which affected her speech.
It took her eight years to get a proper diagnosis of the damage to her spine and treatment from a doctor of osteopathic medicine in the cranial field, which allowed her to focus her eyes again.
“I lost my ability to play piano competently and to speak logically,” she said. “I had aphasia, seeing what I wanted to say but choosing the wrong words, making communication very labored and embarrassing.”
A combination of physiotherapy, speech therapy, memory training, and brain injury rehabilitation finally started to get Ms. Petersen back on track until her son Michael Williams had a fatal accident in 1997.
On Nov. 5 of that year, Mr. Williams, who had just qualified as a butcher, went to Stradbroke Island for a vacation with his brother Brett, and the pair went swimming in the ocean.
“Michael got caught in a rip which led him to be swept to his death around the bend into a ravine with huge waves that rose vertically to 15 meters before crashing down,” Ms. Petersen said. “Michael dying so young, and me still alive, made me think how to best spend the rest of my life in this damaged body.”
It was then that she began working with children at Marshall Road School as a volunteer, helping them learn to read.
“The focus outside myself, I thought, would bring me some relief from the deep grief of losing [my son],” Ms. Petersen said.
Two years after the tragedy, Ms. Petersen graduated from Brisbane’s Griffith University with a bachelor’s degree in education with distinction, and certificates in advanced professional development and linguistics. To reach this pivotal point, Ms. Petersen completed all her coursework lying down to relieve the pressure on her back, and taking regular breaks for pain relief. During lectures, she would position herself at the back of the lecture theatre where she could lie down in order to avoid sitting on her fractured tailbone.
The next big step was escaping her dysfunctional marriage to her “abusive and violent” husband. Up to this point, Ms. Petersen had stayed in the relationship to ensure her children experienced as little disruption as possible.
“I wanted to make sure the children were safe and could avoid him and his moods by taking them on outings away from home,” she said.
As a disabled mother, depressed and in pain, she would fake smiles to hide her distress.
After her divorce, with her remaining children grown and free to explore new horizons, the brave teacher left her native state of Queensland and moved to the city of Launceston in Tasmania. She took out a mortgage, bought a run-down house, and began to carry out major repairs.
Now with an official diagnosis, Ms. Petersen feels fortunate to receive support for ongoing treatment of her condition as well as some domestic assistance and occasional help from a gardener and handyman. To stay fit and healthy, she follows a diet based on home-grown produce, free of sugar and processed foods.
Starting again in Tasmania was challenging, and forging new connections has taken time. However, Ms. Petersen says, “Their generous assistance is beyond what I have experienced elsewhere in my life. ...”
More than once, she has been hospitalized, either for accidental falls or for an ongoing heart condition. During such events, her neighbors willingly look after her dog and five hens, and regularly check on her.
“I have a very long list of kind deeds since I have been here,” Ms. Petersen said.
The 81-year-old, who works as a relief teacher in state schools, currently has no plans to retire.
“I still enjoy teaching students; their innocence and their big hearts. And relief teachers are in great demand—we have a teacher shortage due to burnout from too much administration documentation,“ she said. “When the mortgage is paid off, and when I no longer can physically teach, and when I no longer inspire students, nor help them achieve the desired outcomes from my teaching, then I will stop.”
Ms. Petersen loves her settled island life surrounded by nature, and here in Tasmania, she has found peace.
Reflecting on her life, she says the first step in finding true contentment was learning to forgive and bless those who'd hurt her. The second was overcoming self-pity, bitterness, and resentment. The third was “to forgive myself for not being able to live up to my expectations of myself as mother, daughter, wife, and Christian.”
Ms. Petersen admits that during the trying times, her faith in God was tested. But through it all, she held on.
“Every rotten evil thing that has happened to me has been transformed into a valuable learning situation whereby I developed genuine empathy for others, know how to respond to others sharing their distress with me, and know how to pray with them,“ she said. ”I see God work miracles in their lives as He has in mine.”
