the PDF of her book - National Aphasia Association

118 Ruth Codier Resch Without Utterance:
She wants to see a silver lining in my harrowing days, I think. My voice
is edged, “The uglier ones appeal to me; they are the more beautiful.” Her
face tightens, as if she is shocked by what I say, but she says nothing. I feel
her compassion in her desire to make a hopeful path for me, but I’m still
confused how to cope with these new impairments and can only see another
destruction of my life. I look for the hard, dark undercurrents of truth in art.
The perplexed numb face I see in my mirror is the art I can do.
Beauty lives in the ugliness of my difficult reality. If I can catch something
of the chaos I feel, then I see truth in my condition. That is beauty. I can’t get
to transformation yet. That isn’t the truth now. My living is harsh just now;
why shouldn’t I reflect that in a passionate way? I feel defensive.
My work, my life is slipping away. The simplicity I worked so hard to
attain now feels crushingly complex again.
Yet underneath everything, Oneness supports me, that is, to be in
relationship with the vast diversity around me—not a static attainment like
nirvana—and with the chaos of creation, now also in my brain. This illness
is not an alien-other as it is in dualistic thought. This afternoon looking at
the paintings with Ruth, I touch into the depths of the bitter disarray. That
I succeeded in making them is a feat, and their diversity begins to show
me the open spaces of life in and between them. They are the beginning of
organization in chaos, revealing Oneness without words. I am in relationship
to all, even this.
I have second thoughts about casting off my doctor’s words as I did.
“I am afraid. I live alone,” I think. “Something could happen and no one
would know.” I call my daughter and her husband. “If my brains blow up
altogether, we do need a plan in place. It is not too soon to think about this.
So let’s talk.”
They agree. “We’ll think about it, and get back to you.”
I cherish my independence. The quiet of my little carpenter’s cottage,
the good pleasures of close friends, seeing patients, and my art are the deep
comforts in my life. I have the variety, play, and pleasure in the balanced