Unexpected Gifts Bearing Secrets

While Hugh and I sat reading in our small condo in the outer banks one afternoon, we heard a knock at the door. Outside, stood an acquaintance we had met only weeks before, bearing a lovely gift and card. She asked to speak to me.

She told me she had heard about my book when I handed a few bookmarks out after Hurricane Irene and she bought my book immediately. "I read the entire book very quickly, from his perspective," she said, pointing to Hugh. "Thank-you for writing this book so others understand that people with brain injury may look perfectly fine but still be struggling with many issues." Her eyes filled up.

Shifting nervously from leg to leg, she poured out her own story, saying that Learning by Accident filled in all the blanks of her life for her. "Here, sit down," I said. The three of us talked for nearly two hours. This woman's brain injury occurred forty years ago. Back then, there was little done except to watch a person in a coma and send her home when she woke up. No rehab. No therapy. No grieving. Get on with life. She did just that, and has lived a very happy and fulfilling life, but no one told her about the blank period she suffered in between crashing and remembering, and for her, it was a very long blank period. "No one talked about such things back then," she said. "I cried in my pillow, and I moved on. Your book means everything to me."

After she left, Hugh and I looked at the gift she gave us, a lovely wreath for our condo. But the real gift she gave us was her story. The book unwrapped it, she presented it, and we received it, allowing her to come full circle.