The steamy heat and a wretched cold — even run-of-the-mill sniffles are brutal for him — didn't stop Bryant Neville from sitting along the outfield fence of Elder Field and cheering for his boys.
"Good play, Bud!" he said, between painful-sounding coughs, when Zachary, one of his 11-year-old twins, caught a pop fly.
As poorly as he felt, Neville couldn't help but appreciate that he showed up for a baseball game and a family reunion seemed to break out.
His wife, Tanya, was sitting a couple of lawn chairs over. His in-laws, Thom and Juanita Legacy, sat just beyond her. The twins, Zachary and Joseph, were in the uniforms of their Rocky Run team, playing on the field, and there in the shade, just to his left, was his mother, Gloria, cooing to his son, Kenneth, barely 3 months old.
"Not many people can say they've gotten everything they wanted out of life," said Neville, a well-liked executive with his hometown bank. "I feel like that. Everything I ever aspired to do is here. It's real."
What also is real is this:
Neville, 47, was watching the game from his motorized wheelchair. A traffic wreck as a teenager left him a quadriplegic and, though he might have gotten what he wanted, life hasn't turned out quite the way he expected.
* * * * *
The day in February when Kenneth Dale Neville was born was "definitely an experience," Neville said.
"It was kind of hard to see; your eyes are all watery and everything," he said, recalling the moments he watched the birth of his son. "They wrapped him up and came over and set him where I could have a few minutes to look at him.
"It was a dream I thought would never come true."
In some ways, it was the continuation of a dream that includes his marriage three years ago to Tanya and his role as a father figure to her twins. He thought that part of life had passed him by after March 21, 1981. That night, he was headed to his home near DeWitt, driving his dad's small pickup truck. He and his girlfriend had shopped for outfits for the annual ring dance at Dinwiddie High School. He was an 11th-grader.
"I was on the way home," he said. "I don't remember the exact time, somewhere a little after midnight. About a mile from my home, there was a deer in the path. Stupid me, I tried to miss it. When I did that, the vehicle got sideways and it began to roll.
"It just felt like it rolled on and on and on and on."
The truck came to rest on its roof, Neville all bunched inside. He smelled gas and thought he should get out, but when he tried to move his arms and legs, as he recalled "nothing cooperated."
It was the last day he drove anything other than a wheelchair, the last time he was able to do many of the simple, daily activities we take for granted.
* * * * *
Neville spent more than three weeks in the hospital. He heard a physician tell his parents he likely would be bed-ridden the rest of his life and need round-the-clock care because of the injury to his spinal cord.
"That really got me focused," he said. "That, along with everybody I had around me. The support I had was unbelievable. People from school. Friends. My family was there constantly.
"I had the determination, but I also at that point felt like I had the worst hand that had ever been dealt."
His view of the world and his prospects changed during the six months he spent at Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center near Staunton. He shared a room with three other patients who were paralyzed. His body underwent rehabilitation, but so did his attitude. He learned what he calls "subtle lessons" that included making the most of the abilities he had. He had lost much of his independence, but he hadn't lost everything. His mind remained sharp, and he set about putting it to use.
The only son of a schoolteacher and a manager at a local sawmill, Neville acknowledged he had lost his way a bit academically — cars and girls became happy distractions, he said — but he refocused himself upon returning to Dinwiddie High for his senior year. The school had just gotten a computer in the library, and he learned to use it with the help of his friends, who would type for him. As time went by, he regained strength in his left hand and was able to type on the keyboard using a pencil.
He attended John Tyler Community College and graduated summa cum laude with degrees in computer programming and accounting, and later taught in the school's computer lab. At age 23, he was appointed by the Dinwiddie Board of Supervisors to serve an unexpired term on the college's local board.
"Bryant is one of the finest young men I have ever met," said Freddie Nicholas Sr., who was president of the college when Neville attended and encouraged him to apply for the teaching job. "He was a hard worker and a quick learner. A very quick learner. He did a wonderful job for us."
While working in the computer lab, Neville occasionally helped a student named Juanita Legacy. He eventually met her husband, Thom, who also was taking classes. They became friends, and when Thom Legacy graduated, he invited Neville to a party at his home.
When Neville arrived, a big hill separated him from the home's back deck. Several partygoers picked up Neville in his chair and carried him up the hill.
Not long after, Neville was invited back for a visit. When he arrived, he discovered Legacy and his neighbor had cut trees and paved an area so he could drive his van all the way up the hill, open the door and set his lift right out on the deck.
"I was thinking, 'This is the type of friend to have,' " Neville recalled. "We became best friends."
Their daughter, Tanya, many years later, became his wife.
* * * * *
The Bank of McKenney endured considerable upheaval in the late 1980s when a former president was convicted of embezzlement. In 1989, Richard M. Liles was brought in as president and chief executive officer to clean up the mess. One of his first hires was Neville.
"I've known his family all my life," Liles said. "I remember Bryant before he had his accident. Big, strong, strapping boy. A great baseball player."
Liles didn't know Neville that well, but he knew this: He needed to upgrade the bank's computerization, and Neville knew computers. He also knew a lot of people probably didn't want to come to work at the bank, considering the circumstances.
Liles offered Neville a job, but told him he couldn't guarantee him anything more than a few months of work because he didn't know if the bank would survive. Neville took the job.
"As he was getting ready to leave, I said, 'Bryant, I want you to understand, this is not a sympathy job because we're not in a position to do any sympathy hiring,' " Liles recalled. "He looked at me and said, 'If it's a sympathy job, I don't want it.' "
The hours were long and the work hard to put the bank back on firm footing. Neville's willingness to work seven days a week, as well as his accounting background, served him well. The bank lasted, and so did he. In 22 years, as the bank grew from a single office to six branches and increased assets to almost $200 million, Neville has risen to executive vice president and chief financial officer.
"He's an inspiration … just really an amazing person," Liles said.
Despite the satisfying work, Neville recognized as he got into his 30s that he didn't seem to be moving any closer to having a wife and a house full of kids or, as he put it, "The American dream, right?"
"I had a good career going, and I had stuff, but it just didn't seem to mean much without having anybody to share it with," he said. "You just need that special someone."
Turns out she had been close by all along.
* * * * *
Neville had known Tanya Legacy since he became friends with her parents. Twelve years younger than he, she was about 12 when they first met. She would help him when he visited; he was more like an uncle.
She gave birth to the twins, but never married their father. Taken with Neville's caring manner — "It was like everybody was family to him," she said — she broached the subject of dating, but Neville told her that if she was still single at 30, he would consider it.
"I told her I wanted her to find a normal life," Neville said. "It was somewhat a joke, but somewhat serious to me."
He was always part of the twins' lives; there's a photo of him visiting them in the hospital when they were born. Years passed. Tanya turned 30. They started dating.
The boys weren't aware of it at first — Bryant and Tanya kept it quiet in case things didn't work out — but they must have known something. One December, when he was about 5, Zachary announced to his mother that he wanted a dad for Christmas. Tanya asked if he had anyone in mind.
So the boys have their dad, and Neville has his family, although his approach to fatherhood requires a certain creativity. With the older boys, Neville said the biggest challenge is not being able to teach the finer points of sports, especially baseball. He has the knowledge but not the wherewithal to demonstrate.
"So often I do not feel handicapped," he said, "but then I feel very disabled."
Fortunately, he can count on his father and father-in-law to stand in for him.
With the baby, the best times are when Kenneth is placed on the tray of Neville's chair, and he puts his head on his dad's arm or shoulder. It's the closest Neville comes to holding his son.
Many of us take for granted being able to sweep our children into our arms. Neville has to, as he says, "pick and choose my opportunities."
That's how a lot of his life goes, having to rely on the goodness of others for his most basic needs. He and Tanya and the boys live next door to Bryant's parents and across the street from Tanya's. Everyone has a role in this intricate web of love and support, whether it's Neville's father-in-law getting him out of bed each morning and sharing a cup of coffee with him, or the twins washing their dad's hair or brushing his teeth before going to school.
The linchpin of it all is Tanya.
"God found me my perfect match, and I love her more than words can express," Neville said. "I am certainly nothing special, but I sure have special all around me."
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