News reports the other day indicated that Gabrielle Giffords spoke for the first time since the shooting and asked for toast. I am happy for her, but this news is also upsetting to me. These amazing recoveries make me think about my mom's head injury and the choices I made on her behalf. Choices that did not lead to a miraculous recovery, but ended in her death on her fifth day in neuro ICU at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis just over ten years ago. She had gotten knocked to the pavement accidentally getting out of a friend's car to go to work at the Sally's Beauty Supply in my hometown. She was air-lifted to St. Louis while they were trying to reach me at work. But I had gone at lunchtime to a public library, where I was writing an introduction to a lesson about the book of Job. One moment is was writing about Job. The next moment I was Job, wondering why life had sucker-punched me. With my mom's non-recovery, I find it often bothers me when people do recover, particularly from head injuries, no matter how superficial my perspective of their recovery is.
Bob Woodward, the ABC news anchor, was the first to bother me. He was hit by the roadside bomb in Iraq while reporting on the war. I remember seeing him interviewed for the first time, and even though it was obvious he had gone through a grueling recovery, it made me a little angry. Why? Because he was alive and my mom was not. Both Giffords and Woodward had a section of their skulls removed, something the doctor in my mom's case didn't think was a very good idea when the pressure in her brain began to rise. I seem to recall that he thought the probability was that she would end up with minimal cognitive ability if she lived. Looking back now, it was probably the only chance to save her life. I think about that choice when someone recovers, and wish I had done things differently. At least in those moments I do. I feel guilty saying that I took solace in Natasha Richardson's death two years ago after her skiing accident, but I did. Finally someone famous had it turn out all wrong for them too, just like it did for us. Liam Neeson's choices turned out just like mine did.
After Woodward, I have seen reports on numerous soldiers who have recovered from serious head injuries resulting from brain trauma, although many of them are significantly impaired for life. I loathe myself for being upset about their recoveries, but I get that way sometimes.
Mostly I don't think about my mom's accident and death too much anymore. This heavy burden is lightened by time and stripped of its power by faith. The last week of September, the week it all happened, is often an introspective week for me. Yet I also find late September to be one of the most beautiful times of the year. In the aftermath of tragedy, joy will come knocking at your door. I've learned to open that door more often than not.
Marcia' shares some of this sadness now with me because her mother died on the same late-September day as my mom's accident. But her mother died of cancer. Death is almost a welcome relief to those who suffer with cancer, a logical, rational ending. Death from an accident is cruel, and the timing is all wrong. But in the end, my mom died in part because I instructed them to take her off life support. I contributed to the timing I now despise. I got to play God for just a moment and hated it.