the PDF of her book - National Aphasia Association

62 Ruth Codier Resch Without Utterance:
I’m taking a last walk the whole length of the Promenade
along the edge of Brooklyn Heights. It’s the top shelf of the stacked
lanes of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The clamor of the traffic
below is hidden from the quiet neighborhood above. Walking the
cobblestones with Jake today, I feel as layered as the city. I drink
in the gardens and back facades of the elegant nineteenth-century
townhouses, stealing a glimpse of the panoramic view from their
windows as we stroll.
My health is a shambles, lungs in constant painful flames. First it was
the winter bronchitis, and then the summertime. I knew after the stroke my
days were numbered in this chaotic, noisy, ultra-verbal city.
I am too sick to continue here now. No matter what I want, I have to
leave. I’ve found a group clinical practice in the Pacific Northwest a couple
of hours from where my daughter lives, and I’m leaving to join them.
As we walk the Promenade I think of the Fourth of July. Thousands of
people come from all across Brooklyn to see fireworks at the Statue of Liberty
across the Bay. They pack themselves gently. The “ooos” and “aaahhs” flow
as one voice through the crowd. At the end there is a sweet urban festive air,
no mugging, no conflict. It is a democratic place, this Promenade.
As a young woman I loved the roar and buzz, mystery and elegance of
New York, but it was also a difficult city for a girl from Omaha. The dirt, the
smell after a garbage strike, the disheveled buildings, the poverty, and the
careless anonymity were bruising. For all its paradox, it is where I have lived
for the last thirty years. I married, worked, had a baby, divorced, succeeded
with graduate school, made a career. The city is my home. And now I am
leaving.
The immensity of Lower Manhattan spreads before me as I look toward
Brooklyn Bridge knitting its cables across to City Hall Park. I am stepping off