West Lampeter Township mother is thankful her son is alive, making art nearly 20 years after serious crash

Annette Whitlock always looks forward to getting a Mother’s Day card from her son, Jonathan.

Twenty years ago in June, Jonathan was seriously injured when he lost control of his car and crashed into a telephone pole on Route 222 near Refton. Just two weeks shy of his 19th birthday, he suffered a traumatic brain injury and was in an induced coma for five months.

He wasn’t expected to live, Whitlock said.

July marks another anniversary for the mother and son. It will be one year since she published “The Long Run,” a book about her nursing Jonathan, now 38, back to life and helping him relearn his passion: art.

The book is a collection of her journal entries and email updates from the date of the crash — June 13, 1999 — through 2002.

“It tells the good times, the sad times, the hard times of seeing your son in the trauma unit, wondering if he’s going to survive,” Whitlock, 59, said. “But also seeing the Lord’s hand in your life.”

‘I feel privileged as a mom’

Whitlock 3 — Jonathan Whitlock was seriously injured in a crash nearly 20 years ago on Route 222. He was left unable to walk and unable to use one hand and one eye. He has worked on his fine motor skills and has become an accomplished artist. Last year his mother, Annette Whitlock, wrote a book to tell his story. Thursday, May 2, 2019
DAN MARSCHKA | Staff Photographer

Jonathan was home in Lancaster County after finishing his freshman year studying studio arts at Southern Virginia University when he was in his accident.

Whitlock, her husband, Jeff, and their three other children spent the months after the crash unsure if Jonathan would survive.

He gradually improved, was released from the hospital and spent two years at a Bucks County therapy center.

The recovery was arduous.

“Everything was backwards,” Jonathan said recently from the family’s home in West Lampeter Township.

Parts of his left side are weak or damaged. He is blind and deaf on his left side, and he has limited use of his left hand. He struggles to walk, and he uses a wheelchair to get around.

Jonathan was left-handed, so relearning art meant doing so while learning to use his right hand.

He had been drawing and “arting” since he was 6, he said.

During his rehabilitation, Jonathan took art classes at Bucks County Community College, training his right hand to pick up the skills that came naturally to the left-handed youngster.

It took him 10 months before he could hold a paintbrush again.

“He’s made incredible leaps and bounds with his art,” Whitlock said.

As he was interviewed for this story at his home, Jonathan sketched a picture of a bowl of textured, shadowy potpourri.

He sketches before working with paint on a canvas, and his paintings cover the walls of his family’s home.

Whitlock often takes photos of objects for her son to paint. She found the potpourri at a relative’s house.

“He’s already painted everything here,” she said with a laugh.

It’s part of how they work together now.

“To go from thinking you’re not going to have your son to where we really are partners — he thinks of me as his business manager — and friends, (and) thinking of what he went through and how he came back from it all, I just feel like this is such a gift,” she said. “To have him, still. I feel privileged as a mom.”

‘I love her’

Whitlock 2 — Jonathan Whitlock was seriously injured in a crash nearly 20 years ago on Route 222. He was left unable to walk and unable to use one hand and one eye. He has worked on his fine motor skills and has become an accomplished artist. Last year his mother, Annette Whitlock, wrote a book to tell his story. Thursday, May 2, 2019
DAN MARSCHKA | Staff Photographer

Whitlock had been writing in a journal since she was 16. Her prolific accounts of her day-to-day routine made it natural for her to record Jonathan’s recovery. She sent email updates to family and friends.

It was a friend who suggested she turn Jonathan’s story into a book, an idea Whitlock shied away from at first.

Once she decided to write the book, she said keeping the spiritual part of her son’s recovery was important to her. The family attends the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Lancaster. She included a glossary of terms unique to Mormonism in the book.

“Whenever you have something very traumatic, you have to take that faith, whatever it is, whatever you have got, and you use it,” she said. “I mean, everyone does. No matter what your faith is.

“To ignore that when you’re telling your story isn’t right,” she said.

Jonathan held his first art show after the crash on his 30th birthday in 2010. A new art show — which will include a book-signing for Whitlock — will open from 5 to 8 p.m. June 7 at Gallery One, a new gallery inside Realty One Group Unlimited, 415 N. Prince St., Lancaster. The gallery also will be open from 5 to 8 p.m. July 5 and from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays in June and July.

His art is also featured online at aspieartists.com, the website of Lancaster County-based nonprofit Aspie, which curates art by adults with cognitive disabilities, according to founder Jerry Buckwalter.

Buckwalter said Jonathan’s art, which Aspie’s website describes as a nod to Picasso at times, is “representative of the kind of talent we try to represent.”

“You’re not selecting their gift out of sympathy,” Buckwalter said. “You’re selecting it because it’s generally a talented piece of work.”

At the family’s home in West Lampeter Township, a witty and humorous Jonathan is asked what he thinks about his mom.

“She’s cool,” he said. “She has red hair.”

And there was one more thing.

“I love her,” he said. “She has always been my number one advocate.”