They say that life can change in an instant, and that is exactly what happened in the life of Michael Sauers.

Sauers and his wife, Carola, had been dividing their time between their home in Hazleton and their spacious farm in Beltzville when a tragedy struck, leaving Michael Sauers alone with only memories of his dear wife.On May 12, 2014, Carola Sauers died and Michael was severely injured in a car crash involving Nesquehoning police officer Steven Homanko.According to police, Homanko was traveling 113 mph when he lost control of his cruiser and crashed into the couple's Toyota Yaris.Homanko was charged with felony vehicular homicide, involuntary manslaughter and a number of other charges earlier this year.Michael Sauers has opened a library in his wife's honor.He had been a second-grade teacher in the Pleasant Valley School District for 15 years, and after a lengthy hospital stay and rehabilitation, he returned to his classroom in February to complete the year."I wanted to retire on my own terms," said Sauers. "I wanted time to come back to work so that I could be with the people who had been so good to me, to retire from my classroom."Sauers, 65, believes that but for the accident he would probably would have taught another five years or so."I keep very busy now," he says. "I keep up with both the civil and the criminal cases regularly. I want to be prepared when the time comes for me to speak. If there is a plea bargain or a sentencing, I get the right to talk."Sauers, who has a metal plate in his hip, also continues to keep active as much as possible."I spend a lot of time in the garden. When you come in from outside you are tired. I haven't slept well since the accident and so I work hard to tire myself out."The garden was one of Carola's pet projects. "Carola and I were always active, she was 70 going on 12," he said. "She was in the process of planting an orchard at the farm and starting an organic garden. We were both vegetarians when we met."Sauers taught second grade for such a long time so he had a large collection of children's books."When books would be discarded I would take whatever was left, I always wanted to make sure that there were plenty of books in my classroom so that no student could ever say, 'I didn't have a book' "His wife had also played a part in his classroom."Carola loved children and around Christmas she would come in and talk to the children about Christmas in Germany and teach them to sing 'O Tannenbaum' and bring gingerbread. So I wanted to do something in her memory for children."On Sept. 12, Sauers opened a children's library at the Eldred Township Community Center in what was his old classroom.The library will be open every other Saturday with hundreds of books for children to choose from.At 9:30 and 11 a.m. Sauers conducts a story time where he uses two puppets, which look quite like him, to tell a few jokes, he follows the jokes. He then reads some poetry written by children and then reads a short story.After story time the children are encouraged to select a book to take home. The library works on the honor system."Children of 7 or 8 are the most honest people you will ever meet," says Sauers. "They even tell you the family secrets."Sauers recounts stories of eighth-graders returning books found in a closet at home from when they were in second grade.Recently, Sauers traded in his 12,000 bonus points from Scholastic Books and is expecting 300 new books for his library. He expects some of his readers to be happy that they will now have the complete Magic Treehouse Series and the Beverly Cleary "A to Z Mysteries.""I love the idea of a child holding a real book. I worry that eventually there just won't be any real books."Sauers would someday like to maybe add a writing class for the children. He also hopes to attract local teachers and celebrities to come to the library and read to the children.