Daniel came back
...a dispatch from bewilderness
Daniel “came back” from two weeks in a coma. Daniel’s counselor says that the “old” Daniel is gone. The new Daniel has new frontal lobes and a new life he wouldn’t choose.
Some of us speak like toddlers. Some of us walk like toddlers. Some of of us can’t walk. We come from small towns and big towns, war zones, farms and factories. Phil’s first mind was lost in Iraq. Steve skied into a tree.
Sharon Anne was serving lunch when she was hit by a ceiling fan. There’s also the former professor and the former pianist and the former physician who took care of people like us before she became one of us. Most of us have gentle smiles.
We are parked in brain training. Some of us start to speak, then go blank. Some of us start to think, then find that things seem to cross themselves out, like they were never there. Taking more and more of us, leaving less and less.
The human brain contains all we know, all we ever knew, all we will ever know—and all our memories. Your child’s first steps, your child’s first words, your mom’s last words. Unless it can’t hold them now.
Dr. Seuss wrote: “Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you. He also said, The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
I can’t. After 3 decades as a freelance writer for TV and magazines, I acquired brain damage when a drunk driver stole a truck, jumped a curb and compressed a parked car. I was in the car.
Once I picked from the blueberry tree. Yes, it really was a tree. I stood on my toes for higher branches and knelt for low-hanging fruit. I remember fragments. Sunlight on blankets. Leaves falling gently. Birds flying home.
One moment I was someone. Then I was someone else. But there remains a spark of me in me which I fan into flame because no one else can. Thank you for reading my work.
I am sorry to hear about your situation. However I believe I'm writing a much more Universal story than one that is specific to any injury I may have received. I believe we will each hit the one metaphorical truck or the other, as I actually have written at least one of my pieces. I will call the metaphorical tractor things such as the diagnosis, the disease, the death, the divorce.
I meant to write that I believe I am writing a universal story, not a story that applies to any particular injury that anyone may receive. In other words, I believe we are each hit by a metaphorical truck or two -- the diagnosis, the disease, the death, the divorce. Which means we each must rebuild from loss.