Justin McQueen of Moss Point has little memory of a year most people would like to forget.

The 32-year-old started 2020 recovering from a traumatic brain injury that left his memory of the year blank at worst and hazy at best.

“I don’t know where 2020 went,” Justin said. “I don’t remember nothing of what happened.”

Nov. 24 was the most thankful Thanksgiving ever for the family of Picayune’s Gavin Miller.

Just a week before, a hit-and-run driver crashed into the 17-year-old as he was walking to a school bus stop.

A resulting head injury left his mother, Hesper Miller, worrying: “Is he going to be like himself afterwards?”

“He’d wake up, and it would just be a blank stare,” she said. “Thanksgiving day was his first good day. He was awake and alert and I said: ‘There he is, that’s my kid.’ He was making little jokes, and I was so happy.”

On Aug. 16, doctors doubted Undray Love of Houlka could survive a brain-injuring ATV crash.

“They initially told me he would not make it through the night,” said his wife, Chastity. “They never gave us much hope, really. While we were in critical care, every day, every minute was life or death.”

Love ultimately endured brain surgery, a 32-day coma, a lung collapse and a serious infection. But he began an unbelievable turnaround after arriving at Methodist Rehabilitation Center on Oct. 1.

It’s not how Gray Spencer expected to spend his 22nd birthday—heading home to New Albany after three weeks at Methodist Rehabilitation Center in Jackson.

But on April 22, he was just happy to have overcome a traumatic brain injury in the middle of a pandemic.

“I’m just really thankful,” Spencer said. “I’m blessed to have had good therapists. Without them, I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Right now, he’s on a trajectory to return to college and his job as manager for the Ole Miss basketball team.

His baseball was made of rubber rather than leather.

And his every throw and catch was being monitored by therapists at Methodist Rehabilitation Center.

Yet 16-year-old Jake Williams of Meridian was happily in his element as he tried out his fast ball, curve ball and slider in the Jackson hospital’s fifth floor therapy gym.

After he suffered a traumatic brain injury on Dec. 8, the Clarkdale High School standout feared he’d never return to the game he’d loved since he was a 4-year-old T-baller.

It’s been over seven years since Stevelyn Robinson was paralyzed in a school bus crash, and he hasn’t stopped fighting. He continues to progress through regular physical therapy at Methodist Outpatient Therapy in Ridgeland.

With the help of a walker, the Winona native walked across the stage at his 2016 graduation from Holmes Community College. Now a student at the University of Mississippi, he is working hard so he can do the same again.

Most teens’ “what I did on my summer vacation” essays are probably about lazing by the pool, hanging out with friends or family trips to Disney World.

Connor Bready’s could be titled “I Recovered from a Traumatic Brain Injury.”

The 16-year-old from Greenwood came to Methodist Rehabilitation Center’s brain injury program on June 12 in a wheelchair. He had just had surgery that removed a piece of his skull after sustaining a head injury in a freak accident. Just 10 days later, he walked out MRC’s doors on his own, and he’s already back at school at Pillow Academy.

Jasmine “Coco” Whiteside was not herself.

Usually reliable and upbeat, the University of Southern Mississippi senior had begun ditching plans with friends and texting photos of herself crying.

Her mother, Angela Whiteside, was baffled. She knew her daughter as intelligent and independent, the kind of kid who takes care of business.

“Whatever you wanted or needed, Coco was there for you,” Whiteside said.  “Ain’t nobody perfect, but she was perfect.”

And now she was a perfect mess.