Shock Waves

In a way, Robert is more endearing than before. Yet there are barriers that inhibit his desire and ability to interact with people outside his family who might sincerely enjoy his company. My brother’s language is sometimes slightly garbled, due to the diffuse nature of his brain injury. He once was trying to say, “Typical, typical,” but instead said, “Pitacal, pitacal,” and continued on without noticing his error. He often recounts stories from his therapy sessions or explains how he is feeling with an undeniable element of theatricality, brandishing his arms and using archaic or overblown language. He uses words like “whither,” “thus,” and “thence,” and consistently says “nay” instead of “no.” He also takes delight in the kind of pranks a 10-year-old might pull, such as bopping someone on the head as they come around a corner. He can be extremely rude when out in public, completely ignoring an old friend or a formerly familiar passerby who is asking about his health.

It can be difficult to console my brother during the times he explicitly or tacitly laments his lost abilities. He can no longer play baseball or basketball with his friends, and this makes it hard for him to participate in the sports nights they used to enjoy together. He cannot go shooting with them or play paintball. He cannot play the bass for hours at a time anymore. Because of his medications and the risk of seizure associated with the crainoplasty that restored the missing part of his skull, he cannot drink alcohol. An ardent sports fan, who spent countless nights watching football and drinking beer with his friends, he now rarely goes out with them to a bar or sports parties. Robert has neglected these relationships and, in turn, has been neglected by many of his friends. It is difficult for them to know how to respond to the way he is now. My brother does have one friend who takes the bus down from Providence on Thursday nights to play video games with him. They sit on the couch in his apartment, eating Skittles and laughing hysterically at their memories of the old days. My brother looks forward to these evenings with unabashed joy. We are extraordinarily grateful for the dedication that compels this friend to return again and again.

As my brother recovered in Bethesda and later in Tampa, he knew he was in rehab with the specific purpose of getting stronger and becoming well; he was a recuperating soldier. When he returned home, many people assumed it meant that he had been patched up and put back together again. They often greeted him with a pat on the back, saying, “So do you feel like yourself again?” My brother would nod with the wide-eyed and complaisant face he sometimes assumes when talking to people outside the family and mumble something like, “Yeah, yeah.” At such moments I would try to remind him that he had never stopped being himself. The last thing I want him to think is that his injury has taken away whatever made him himself, especially since most of its effects will not go away for as long as he lives.

But there is more kindness than logic in what I tell him. The parts of his personality and his life that he has lost have been carved out with a heavy hand. It is not hard to think that the Robert we knew is gone. My brother is a paradox. We insist that he has survived, that his essential self has been retained. We have not mourned the loss of someone we love. I cannot compare what he or my family has been through to the anguish caused by death in war. We are unquestioningly happy that he is indeed still here, but something — some part of him — clearly came to an end that morning in Baghdad.

Robert still loves to throw out snatches of movie lines. He loves guns and dogs and watching sports just like he used to. But he is no longer the person who, for 23 years, I thought of as “my brother.” His quirky mind, his narrow focus, his slurred speech, and his physical difficulties all suggest another person to me. My brother is alive, but transformed to such a degree that I separate who he is now from the person I once knew as if they were entirely different individuals. This is subconsciously reflected in the way we address him. Before his injury, he went by “Rob.” My family now often calls him “Bob,” as if he is someone other than the “Rob” we knew for so many years.

It may be possible that receiving life instead of death can become its own kind of torment. Robert must negotiate his “new” life in the face of bitter and permanent alteration. It is incredibly sad when I catch an occasional glimpse of his frustration and bewilderment at his new dependency. His moments of seeming oblivion are interlaced with times of an acute sense of loss and extreme self-consciousness — about his appearance, his disabilities, his difficulties in following rapid conversations. It is hard to know how to respond when he refuses to eat out at a restaurant with us, because it is too embarrassing to be seen having someone help him with his food and implements.

My brother was not characterized by timidity or reluctance during his brief military career. Robert volunteered to go to Iraq and was placed with a new unit that was just deploying. His work there of removing roadside bombs and IEDs probably saved hundreds of lives in a country that has seen too much sadness already. His men said he was like a father to them, though many of them were older than he. They said he did everything right. They said he was the only person they wanted to trust with their lives. For Robert, an identity defined by disability must seem a poor trade, especially as he had so recently found his way to flourish.

Robert still occasionally insists that all he wants to do is re-join the military and be an engineer. He took a vocational test as part of his rehabilitative therapy and scored highest in these two areas, a cruel jab at his inability to now follow his “calling.” His physical and cognitive limitations have trapped him in a sphere of himself that doesn’t contain the parts that he always liked the most about himself. What do you do with yourself when all you ever wanted to do is resolutely out of your reach? Since my brother’s injury, I have often struggled with the despair that this line of thinking brings. In weariness, I succumb to believing that this harsh fate will rival any death stroke. My brother may always remain a hero for what he has been through. But a hero who is unable to open a jar or spread the cream cheese on his own bagel may grow weary and contemptuous of life very quickly.