"I just wanted to thank you again for all you have done. . . . This will sound silly because I am only a third-year college student, but if there is ever anything I can do in any way to help either of you. . . ."
On Dec. 29, Matt scratched out a one-page letter to his parents and brother:
"The three of you have been incredible these last 8 weeks. . . . The doctors physically stabilized me, but you all healed me. I thank God multiple times a day for blessing me with such a strong family - Emily included - who I love more than anyone loves anything in the world."
Two nights later, he e-mailed Merrily Stilwell, 61, a receptionist who worked with Matt's father at Vanguard. She'd sent Matt a ceramic butterfly inscribed, "With a little bit of faith, Big Miracles can happen."
Stilwell, who has multiple sclerosis, had fired a therapist who told her she'd never walk - then proved him wrong.
Saying he was bringing the butterfly back to school, Matt wrote, "There is a hook in my ceiling above my bed where the butterfly will hang and watch over me and remind me of how blessed I am. . . ."
Matt finished his fall semester with straight A's.
By year end, his facial nerve had started to come back. "From then on," he said, "every day I would pucker my lips just to see the increase in motion that I had gained!"
On Jan. 13, when Park was certain Matt would need no more surgeries, Matt pulled out his own trache tube in Park's office.
Mark Bernardino, who had coached Matt when he was on the University of Virginia swim team and coached him back to fitness in the hospital, worried that Matt would fear swimming after his tracheostomy. He insisted that Matt return to the pool as soon as the hole in his throat had healed.
On Jan. 30, Bernardino cleared a lane and, naturally, put a stopwatch on Matt. Pushing off, Matt swam a 100-yard freestyle in 59 seconds. For a college swimmer, this is unremarkable. But for a young man who wasn't even sure his airway would work properly, this was a triumph.
In February, Emily took Matt out to dinner to celebrate his 21st birthday, and by the end of the month he got the OK to get back on a bike.
"His face is strong, maybe stronger," Park said. "It's reinforced with titanium plates. Once it heals, it's rock solid."
Matt always planned to ride his bike again, but he decided he'd ride only on bike trails and in competitions where roads were closed to cars.
He made this decision not because he was afraid.
"If I remembered the accident," he said, "I'd probably never want to get back on the bike. But I have no recollection. None."
Matt's concern was causing pain to loved ones. "I never, ever again want to put them through what they went through," he said.
One day during spring break, Matt rode the 2.5-mile Radnor Trail four times. He felt only joy, back on his bike.
A few weeks later, Matt told his story to 300 students from third to eighth grade at a private school in Virginia where his uncle is a teacher.
Matt spent hours thinking about what he wanted to say.
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