The Human Touch 2013 - University of Colorado Denver

Left Overs [Continued]
I still have some memory, some sense of myself.
I tried this morning at breakfast to befriend Gertrude,
the fi rst time in over a year
next to each other I risked that.
For months now Gertrude has sat motionless,
staring far off in to space. Far, far into space.
Her eyes turn in, not out.
It is as if imminence made keener
some precious memories, long abandoned
for recollection, yet, there, deep and
quivering and unfathomable.
Gertrude pushed up my cane when I could not reach it.
The fi rst day I came in my wheelchair,
she looked up at me, her eyes bright then.
She never spoke, but I knew what she said,
“You are an important person. You should
not feel you must stay invisible.”
We remained in the room for music that day –
we held hands briefl y when the recording played
“I Wandered Today to the Hill, Maggie”.
This morning, Gertrude is gone.
I am shaken.
I did not know we were so attached.
I had risked her silences as we ate together;
she had risked mine.
I did not know; I would not know.
Tomorrow Gertrude will share again with me,
this time in the dark…darker for me than for her, perhaps.
Deep inside, memories lie briefl y,
banked in soft embers.
I will remember…deep inside.
I will remember what remains simmering yet, of a left over.
…Gertrude, I am alone, the left over. •
TBI Memoir
Student
What is it like to not be able to think?
To wake up one day—
or not day;
night, evening,
early am 5am 6am 4am?—
and not know what has happened or where you are,
To not remember the events before,
To wake up covered in vomit, seeing the face of a friend.
Let’s call her Linda.
Let’s call her Linda, the ER junkie.
[Junkie enough to wish ill will upon friends
so that they are transported to the ER
so that she can be with them in the ER
(not really) (but maybe?)]
To wake up covered in vomit—
no,
as you are vomiting.
To get taken to an ICU
[or a WhateverWhateverWhatever,]
Or the MultiTraumaUnit of
some fl oor,
somewhere, and to be
Alone.
Not the
you that you
are, but some other version of yourself,
Some damaged, broken version.
And you are alone. [Not wearing pants,
though this is not at all a crucial point,]
PG 132
PG 133