Shock Waves

Every time I see my brother’s curved, flaccid fingers or run my own able fingers along the baby skin of the huge scars that cross his head, I wish fervently that this had never happened. To serve his country, my brother sacrificed a promising future as a leader in the military. I fear that all he is becoming instead is a guy scratching at himself as he sits on the sofa with his computer watching Internet porn, living on his military disability pay and Social Security.

But this is not the possibility that my family must choose to dwell on as we vacillate each day between despair and hope. Not every disabled person becomes tired of life. There is always dignity, pleasure, and meaning to be found in existing. Science and medical research continually hold the promise of alleviating Robert’s symptoms. With the therapies that he is undergoing, he has a fighting chance to regain a little more function. We must never forget how much we have already received. My brother has been given back to us multiple times: from death, from a vegetative state, and from an enfeebled condition. Surely this can be seen as an encouraging trend.

Robert escaped death by two feet, living while the driver sitting next to him, a young man from Washington named James, died. Before each mission, the two of them would clasp arms and tell each other, “No fear on earth.” I understand that what these two soldiers were saying to each other was that acting as if you are unafraid is how to function in a volatile and perilous world. It is this grim determination that repels the terror and discouragement that unfairness and absurdity can engender.

I no longer have the illusion that soon my family will be able to clap my brother on the back and say, “Phew, that’s over. We made it through.” Robert is never going to be cured. But the possibility of our continual enslavement — my brother’s to his injury, my parents’ to their son, and mine to my family — is something I do not want for us. This tragedy may not disappear or even lessen much in severity, but the virtue of being alive and not dead is that we can respond actively and creatively to even this situation. So while my brother treks across our parents’ yard every morning, following the dusty path that his feet have worn in the grass, to sit in the kitchen and wait for someone to make his oatmeal and coffee before resuming his position on the sloping, brown couch in his apartment, I have booked a plane ticket to New Zealand and am preparing to fulfill my post-graduation plans, which will be two years overdue by the time I embark.

The persistence that it takes to adapt to change is a daily concatenation of choices. Although I choose to be hopeful for both myself and my brother, hope can never assuage the heartbreak for what he and my family have gone through. But I am resolved to believe that just as my brother set in motion the conditions for enslavement, I can set in motion those for freedom. Maybe now he will follow my voice, as he was unable to do as I stood over his bloated and tremulous body many months ago in the ICU. It is telling him that enduring change means bearing sadness, anger, regret, and pain. But if I can find a way to spite the despair, so can he.

Bethany Vaccaro has a B.A. degree in philosophy from the University of Rhode Island, where she has taught a course in introductory philosophy. This is her first published article.