One of the most difficult things for me to accept was an offhand remark from, I think it was my occupational therapist about two months after my injury: the person you were is gone.

I suppose I became rather defensive.

I think my response was something along the lines of, “I have all of the memories of self from a full lifetime, how can he be gone?! I’m right effing here!”

Now, looking back after two and a half years, I don’t think that she or any of the other therapists, nurses, neurologists, or physicians were quite as clear about how true and profound that statement was.

Yes, it hurt emotionally to hear it as if she was speaking of me as if I were dead. But thinking back, it was, for me, exactly what I needed to hear.

It should have been repeated.