Heidi Cave
// Author & SpeakerHEIDI CAVE is an author, motivational speaker, mother, and wife based in Langley, British Columbia, Canada. She is a well-respected advocate for burn survivors and amputees, and an ambassador for the BC Professional Fire Fighters burn fund. Heidi has told her story to audiences across Canada including the British Columbia Legislative Assembly in Victoria, with more than 3,000 firefighters from every state and province in North America at the International Association of Fire Fighters’ Biennial Convention. Heidi writes at her blog called Fancy Feet, and her memoir “Fancy Feet: Turning My Tragedy Into Hope” (2013) is available from Amazon.com, Behler Publications, and bookstores across Canada and North America.
Website: www.heidicave.com
Photo: Heidi Cave
Interview:
Art and music have the ability to disarm, to help us move beyond what’s bothering us and soften our edges. Healing happens. Art brings new ideas and fresh vision. It expands our hearts and minds and disassembles walls we’ve built to make room for beauty and grace, for love.
Art inspires. It lifts us, taking us to higher places. It forces us to think. When I was working on my memoir, “Fancy Feet,” I would get stuck and unsure of where to take a chapter. So I got in my car, turned up the volume of my music and drove. Words found me through music and gave me direction. Sometimes music moved the noise from my mind and calmed me, giving me space to breathe. Art can change us in positive and profound ways.
In order to write my story honestly and let the reader in, I had to dig deep and explore places I hadn’t touched or seen in a long time. There was a section which was particularly hard for me to write. I had to confront the driver who had slammed into my car, taking my friend’s life and devastating my own. 52% of my body was burnt, both my legs were amputated and I spent seven months in the burn unit because he chose to drive recklessly. He then lied, pinning his actions on the passenger in his car, his brother.
As I wrote and rewrote, researched what had happened on that life-changing evening on June 12, 1998, anger resurfaced and I realized I had never fully dealt with my feelings toward the driver. I was focused on healing and recovery —so much was lost—that I could not give the driver more than he had already claimed, so I pushed aside anger and concentrated on getting better. I was determined to be a survivor and not a victim. Sadness, loss, and fury were in front of me again, stirred up and pulsing through me. Every time I sat at my computer and typed what the police stated, why my friend’s family was shattered, how we stood up in court to face him, I remembered, and I hurt.
I came to forgive the driver. I wrote him a letter expressing forgiveness. But, I found myself faced with the choice of grace again as I sat in the rubble of a battle fought long ago. After weeks of writing and sifting through buried and new emotions, I came to the conclusion I reached years ago. The need to forgive. Toward the end of a chapter titled “Redemption” I wrote, “it was better to let go than to hang on.” I looked at that sentence and saw its truth. It is better to let go. Forgiveness found me anew and this time it was through my writing, my art.
“Art and music have the ability to disarm, to move beyond what’s bothering us and soften our edges. Healing happens.”
– Heidi Cave, Author & Speaker
