My Life, Deleted (6 page)

The next morning started out like every other one since my accident: it was bright, sunny, and about seventy degrees outside. This morning, after another sleepless night, my headache was still raging. I hadn't been sleeping more than one to three hours since my accident. On a scale of one to ten, the pain was an eleven. Thankfully, the Percocet was slowly working.

After seeing the winter wonderland on television, it didn't seem right that our local trees and streets weren't blanketed with white flakes. “Where's the snow?” I asked, wondering how it smelled and tasted, sure I used to know such things.

“Honey, we live in southern Arizona. We just don't get snow here,” Joan said, explaining that we'd often traveled to see snow in Flagstaff or go skiing in Colorado. Besides, she added, “Christmas isn't about snow. It's about the birth of Christ.”

Joan and I had been taking the dogs for walks in the neighborhood over the past few days. Joan said we lived near an area that allowed people to keep animals such as turkeys, llamas, goats, and horses, so she took me to see some. I recognized the horses, but I got really frightened when a scary beast I didn't recognize started running toward me. Luckily, there was a fence to stop him.

“What is that?”

“It's an ostrich,” Joan said. “It's a type of bird that doesn't fly.”

That made no sense to me, but as I took in the landscape of cacti, palm trees, big boulders, sand, and gravel, I was starting to form a sense of the place I lived and comparing it to Chicago and Buffalo, where I'd seen the people on television, all bundled up and tromping through snow.

I wonder how our Christmas is different from someone who lives in New York.

Compared to all the other stuff I didn't know, this was one of the more pleasant things I wondered about.

When the kids were little, Joan said, we used to cook a Christmas breakfast of pancakes or homemade waffles, usually with chocolate chips. But now that they were grown, she and I ate while Taylor slept in. She used to cook us pork sausage, she said, but now that we were both eating healthier, it was turkey sausage. After breakfast we sat in the living room enjoying the unusually peaceful stillness of the morning.

Once Taylor got up, she started poking around the mound of gifts that had appeared under the tree overnight. Joan had been wrapping for days. As soon as Grant arrived at noon, we passed them around.

Taylor went first, opening a box to reveal a brown and pink Tory Burch tote bag. Joan had told me that Taylor loved this designer, so it should be a big hit with her. Well, she was right. Taylor was so excited she jumped up and down on the couch, still clutching the bag.

But when it came time for Grant to open his present from Joan and me—a series of gift cards from Chili's, Subway, and Starbucks—he looked irritated and wouldn't look us in the eye. He also rejected Joan's offer of a Christmas cookie.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, I just don't feel good,” he said.

At first I thought he didn't like what we'd gotten him. Then I thought maybe this was how men were supposed to act. I'd been watching him closely for his reaction, so I could determine how I was supposed to respond when I opened my gifts. On
The Sopranos
only the women shrieked with excitement when opening their presents while the men were more laid-back. But Grant seemed so somber, I was confused.

Joan had told me that he'd wanted these cards because he had no money and loved to eat out, but he was clearly displeased. I didn't understand how my two kids could respond in such polar opposite ways. I figured that Grant should be happy getting a gift, no matter what it was, and yet he didn't even seem to want to be there.

It wasn't just that. My whole family seemed to be on edge, which I attributed to my injury. I didn't want them to feel this way. I wanted them to experience the emotional closeness and joy I'd seen on TV, where Christmas was the happiest day of the year.

As Taylor opened up her other gifts—jackets and necklaces from us and a Juicy Couture key ring from Grant—she turned to me and said, “Stop watching me. Open yours!”

So I did. Taylor gave me a spray bottle of Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue cologne. I pulled the blue cap off the opaque white bottle and sniffed. Unsure of what to say, I aimed for a middle-of-the-road mix of pleasure and surprise.

“It smells good,” I said. “I like it.”

I was relieved that it wasn't something I had to figure out. Frankly, I would have been happy with a cookie because at least I'd know what to do with it.

Joan got me some golf shirts, and I felt bad that I had nothing for her. I knew I couldn't have left the house in my condition, and Joan told me later that I hated going to crowded malls, so I used to pick out and pay for all my Christmas gifts and then get Robyn, my assistant, to pick them up for me. Joan said she hadn't said anything about gifts this year because I had enough to worry about. In the photos I saw of our last few Christmases, Grant never smiled or interacted with the family; he seemed isolated and withdrawn.

Why is
he so different from the rest of us? What is going on in his life that he's not happy at this time of year? And why do Joan and Taylor seem more tense when he comes over?

Joan's parents arrived later that afternoon. They'd come over to see me a few days after I'd gotten home from the hospital, and I'd found no resemblance between them and Joan. They also seemed old compared to pictures of my parents, even though they were roughly the same age.

Harvey, a retired salesman, was about five feet five inches and seemed small and frail compared to me. His wife, Fran, looked like the typical TV grandmother—a bit overweight but even shorter than Harvey, with graying dark hair. Before she'd retired at seventy, she'd been a nurse, like Joan, only she'd specialized in drug addiction. She seemed warm and caring.

“How's the pain?” she asked.

“Unbearable,” I replied.

Harvey didn't say much, seemingly oblivious to my condition and to our internal family drama. He seemed more concerned with what Joan said was his usual agenda—eating whatever was in front of him and napping on our couch. I did notice, however, that he and Fran seemed comfortable with us and engaged in conversation. It was clear they'd been to our house many times before.

It was interesting for me to observe their moods and body language as they interacted with Joan because I wanted to see how a child, other than my own, acted toward a parent. It was also important for me to watch how Joan treated her parents so I would know what to do when my parents visited.

When my niece Jamie showed up with her family, I tried to put on a happy face, but it was difficult. I was feeling anxious about how I was supposed to act and fearful about their response to me. Grant was still acting distant, even from his little cousins, who jumped on him and tried to get him to play games with this black box that said
Nintendo
and connected to the TV somehow. But he shooed them away, choosing to nod off on the couch instead. I, on the other hand, was fascinated. I thought it was cool that Noah was actually controlling the picture on the TV, and I was impressed that a six-year-old could do so well with his levers and buttons when it looked far too complicated for me to even try.

Surrounded by ten of my closest relatives, I still felt so alone. They were all hugging each other and finishing each other's sentences. I felt like an outsider, as if I had nothing in common with any of them. Even though everyone went out of their way to make me feel like nothing was wrong, I still felt invisible. I wanted to scream, “I'm not okay, and I'm scared!” Despite what the doctors said, there were moments when I was so afraid that the rest of my life was going to feel this empty that I had to fight to hold back the tears.

It helped when Joan and Kevin set me up outside with the natural gas-fueled barbecue and got me started grilling the chicken, steak, and prawns, which provided a welcome distraction. I'd watched a grilling show on the Food Channel, but I had no independent recollection of how to do my usual dinner duty. Thankfully, Kevin suggested when it was time to turn the meat.

When Joan said dinner was ready and called us to the table, everyone started moving toward certain seats, as if they knew where they were supposed to sit.

“Do all people sit in a particular chair?” I asked Joan. “Where do I sit?”

“You sit at the head of the table, right here,” she said, guiding me to the end nearest the kitchen. “Grandpa sits at the other end.”

We had sweet corn, Jamie made “her delicious” garlic mashed potatoes, and Fran had brought her famous sweet potatoes in their sticky syrup, with bakery-fresh apple pie for dessert.

It had been a rough day. I was still feeling weak physically, so I couldn't roughhouse with the boys as I apparently used to, but I played with them in short intervals the best I could. I let them climb onto my lap, press their sticky gift bows onto my shirt, and pull my Christmas cracker, enjoying their screeches of glee when it popped and their little toys flew out. I also tried to get to know the rest of my family a little better and even put on the brightly colored tissue paper crown like everyone else. Part of me wanted to join in the celebration, and part of me just wanted to doze off on my chair, but I managed to control my headache with the medication and didn't have to go lie down. That night I fell into bed, my body aching and racked with exhaustion from the most physical exertion I had done since the hospital. Still, I was relieved that I had managed not to scare anybody or make anyone sad, and most important, I hadn't broken into tears. I'd made it through my first family holiday, and for that I felt thankful.

Chapter 5

T
HE NEXT DAY
Joan started taking down all the Christmas decorations inside the house, except for the tree, in preparation for Taylor's birthday on the thirtieth because she wanted Taylor to have her own, separate holiday.

“No combo celebrations,” she said.

On the twenty-ninth Grant came over to help strip off the exterior lights. Although the sixty-five-degree weather wasn't anywhere near heat-stroke temperatures, he was sweating and looked noticeably pale.

Some of the bulbs had burned out, and Joan had already bought a new set of lights for the next year, but Grant made the simple removal job harder than it needed to be. As he ripped off the plastic cord in an agitated frenzy, he cursed when the lights didn't come loose easily, then tossed and broke them on the front walkway.

I'd heard people cursing on
The Sopranos
and in movies I'd been watching and asked Joan what some of the words meant.

“
Ass
is another name for butt,” she said, warning me before I repeated any of the other words, which she said were generally considered inappropriate. “We try not to swear, especially around the kids.”

So, hearing my son spouting expletives that afternoon, I came outside to investigate. “What the hell are you yelling about?” I asked. “God, Grant, you're making a mess.”

“What's the difference, we're throwing them out anyway,” Grant retorted, continuing to swear as he tore the cord from the roof.

“Well, I would rather get up on the ladder and do it myself than listen to you yell,” I snapped. Even in my fragile state, I preferred to risk further injury than let the neighbors hear any more of his tantrum.

“Fine, you can do it then,” he said, climbing down and storming off.

With my head pounding, I pulled myself up the steps and heard Joan scolding Grant. “I can't believe you let him climb that ladder when he just had a head injury,” she said.

I'd pulled down five feet of lights when Joan made a beeline for me. “What's going on? I could hear you guys yelling.”

I filled her in, and she told me to come down. “I will do this,” she said. “I don't want you on a ladder.”

I knew she was probably right, so I did as instructed. Grant came back outside with a bottle of water and finally did as I asked, unhooking each light from its eyelet and handing the cord down to Joan while I watched, red in the face from the pain and irritation.

“I just don't feel good,” Grant said. “I don't want to do this.”

When he finished twenty minutes later, he mumbled that he was leaving and sped off in his 1998 Honda Accord.

“I don't know much,” I said, “but I wouldn't think I'd let my dad get on a ladder if he'd just gotten out of the hospital. What is with this kid?”

I couldn't understand how or why my only son would act so selfish and uncaring after crying so hard over my injury at the hospital. It just didn't make sense.

The next day marked Taylor's seventeenth birthday, which started off with another family tradition. Joan said we always served each other breakfast in bed on birthdays, so Joan and I made Taylor pancakes with a glass of chocolate milk and chatted with her in her bedroom while she ate.

Even though I'd been up most of the night again and my head felt like it was in a vise, I was not going to miss participating in this family ritual. I knew from all of Joan's efforts to make this day special for Taylor that celebrating birthdays was something I needed to learn how to do. I wanted to please Joan and Taylor, and I figured I'd better get used to doing things when I was in too much pain to enjoy them. At the same time, I didn't want my pain to distract or take away from Taylor's day. I didn't know the name for this emotion yet, but I was feeling guilty about my accident and how it was affecting my family.

Taylor spent the rest of the morning and afternoon with her boyfriend, Anthony, while Joan and I relaxed and wrapped her presents: a bottle of Juicy Couture perfume and some designer clothes she'd wanted.

That evening Joan and I took Taylor to P.F. Chang's, her favorite Chinese restaurant, where Grant met us and behaved badly.

Joan's parents and Anthony joined us at the house for dessert and the opening of gifts.

Joan had prepared me for what we did on Christmas, but she didn't give me a heads-up about what happened next, and I didn't like surprises. She turned off the lights in the kitchen, where we were sitting around the table, with an ice cream cake in the middle, and everyone started to sing. But there was only one problem: I did not know the words to the birthday song. Feeling very uncomfortable, I watched everyone else and tried to mimic the words by mouthing along. I'm sure I was way off, but I didn't like looking stupid because it was such a basic tune, so I tried to appear as if I was keeping up.

I soon learned that I could feel a little less overwhelmed and frustrated at how much I didn't know by actively learning whatever I could in any way that I could. Watching TV seemed the simplest, fastest, and most comprehensive method, and it became like a life-sustaining medication that was just as important as my painkillers, if not more so. It also helped me cope while I suffered from severe insomnia.

In the beginning I'd get so tired that I'd go to bed at 9:00
P.M.
Joan lay down with me and rubbed my chest until I fell asleep, then left and came back to bed an hour or so later when she felt tired. At first I was scared when she got into bed with me, and although I wasn't as uncomfortable with her touching me as I'd been in the hospital, I was still feeling uneasy about it. I wondered if I should say something or just let it go, and I decided to choose the latter. I wanted to do everything normally—act the way I used to—and I figured the best way to do that was to follow her lead. It took me a few days to get used to it, and then it was okay. In fact, I grew to enjoy the attention.

As time went on, Joan and I went to bed together around 10:00 or 10:30
P.M.
, but I was lucky if I fell asleep for an hour or two before waking up and going to my chair in the living room, where I sat up for the rest of the night, flipping around the two-hundred-plus channels on DirecTV. The satellite service offered me a channel for almost any topic I could want, from business or political news to stock market tips, sports, cooking, history, and movies. With my fallback standard, Fox News, starting up at 3:00
A.M.
, I never had a problem finding something to watch. Some nights I couldn't fall asleep at all, and if I dozed off for an hour in the afternoon, that would be the only sleep I'd get for forty-eight hours.

Often the pain was so bad that I'd have to take my medication before I even lay down, so it became a challenge of timing. The pills took up to forty-five minutes to work, and I had to take them every four hours to focus on anything, including sleep. Frequently I'd have to get by with just resting my eyes while I listened to the TV. Joan didn't tell me this at the time, but the Percocet often made me quite irritable. I couldn't figure this out for myself, of course, because I had no basis for comparison.

The basic knowledge I gained from watching around-the-clock TV—stopping only to sleep, to eat, to talk with Joan or Taylor, or to take the occasional trip out of the house—helped shape my immediate responses to whatever was going on around me. Over time I would come to understand that the world I saw on sitcoms and in movies was far from the real world, but it did allow me to form a basic understanding of our culture.

It was still difficult for me to learn and retain information, so I used any tool that helped me remember things. I often scrambled the days of the week, for example, or forgot the names of certain days.

One day I saw a commercial for the NuvaRing, the once-a-month contraceptive device. Now, I didn't really understand what this was or why they'd advertise a product for such a private purpose on television. But the ad, which featured women ripping off the midsections of their yellow bathing suits and swimming together like they were dancing, did teach me something else. The commercial was annoying, but its catchy tune listed all the days of the week, which helped me remember them in the proper order. I couldn't get this song out of my head for months, which meant I never forgot this information again.

Later, Joan and I were watching a documentary on Olympic training that showed women doing the same kind of swim-dancing, and I said, “Hey, that's just like the NuvaRing commercial.”

When she explained that this was called synchronized swimming, which had its own Olympic event, I realized that the ad had been educational in more ways than one.

My headaches continued virtually round the clock, and even though I managed to watch endless TV shows, I never seemed to complete a full program because my attention span was so short. Constantly changing the channel, I could watch a show or movie repeatedly without seeing the same scenes twice.

Joan and the kids encouraged me to watch movies I'd liked before or were family favorites. In turn, I shared with them movies I thought were good, only to be told that we'd already seen them countless times. It was reassuring to know that some of my likes and dislikes had remained the same, that I might not be as different as I felt.

Maybe everything about me hasn't changed. Maybe it just feels that way because it's all new to me.

Wanting to blend in with the people around me and be able to hold an intelligent conversation, I tried to absorb as much information as I could about real life. I figured that everyone was educated about world events, and to prevent anyone from thinking I was ignorant or lacked a general knowledge of these topics, I watched shows on CNN, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and the Military Channel. But because I lacked context, it was difficult sometimes for me to differentiate between breaking news and old news footage, like the space shots I saw in the
Apollo 13
movie.

I'd had no preconceived notion about our planet, but I was still surprised to learn that the earth was round. I was also intrigued to hear that so few people had traveled into space and that the universe never ended. It seemed that so little was known about space—or how the brain worked, for that matter—that after watching documentaries on the subject, I figured I knew as much as most anyone else. I also learned about our history of wars and foreign conflicts, feeling surprised and saddened that so many young men my son's age from all over the globe had died, and were still dying, in battle; I'd assumed that most soldiers would be closer to my age. I also didn't understand why many of these wars got started, and all the differing opinions I kept hearing about this didn't help me form one of my own.

Watching the brave soldiers fight for our country made me wish that I'd joined the military. It seemed like such a noble, honorable thing to do because my country was something worth protecting. Joan said she thought I'd been accepted at the Air Force Academy when I was younger, but she wasn't sure. So I asked my mom, and she said that I'd been recruited during my senior year of high school—and even had been endorsed by a congressman—but I'd chosen to go to Northern Illinois University instead.

It made me a little crazy to watch footage of other major historical events, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy, because I knew I
must
have known these things before, and yet I had no recollection. I still didn't have a good grasp of time, but I could do the math, piecing together that I'd been about a year old when Kennedy was shot.

I felt myself absorbing lots of information from these programs, but I always felt stressed about whether I was gathering the
right
information—and enough of it—to carry on a normal existence outside the cocoon of my house. Also, the more I learned, the more I realized how much I didn't know. I didn't realize, of course, that this is true for many people because the amount of information available to us these days is almost infinite. It's just that most people don't experience as much fear or anxiety as I did from such an epiphany because the gaps in my knowledge and experience were so vast.

But I could go even deeper into the emotional vortex than that. Watching shows such as
The First 48
on A&E, which documents the activities of homicide detectives and crime scene investigators during the crucial first forty-eight hours after a murder is committed, I was amazed at how they put clues together to solve these crimes. And yet I also found myself wishing that I was one of the victims. I figured my family would be better off that way, not having to live with someone who had changed and forgotten so much, someone who didn't know if he'd ever get better or, God forbid, got even worse. It's not that I was feeling suicidal—I didn't even know what suicide was—nor was I worried about becoming a homicide victim; it was simply a potential method of relieving my mental and physical pain. Of course, I never told Joan about these dark thoughts; I didn't want to make
her
pain and anguish any worse.

Things weren't always dark for me, though. Every day I woke up hoping that my memory would come back and I could return to my previous life. The doctors had said this would happen, and Joan and I were trying our best to be optimistic, but we were getting a bit impatient. We wanted to know what was going on in my brain. But that didn't change the fact that I didn't know how to exist in the meantime. Joan told me I'd been a solution-seeking guy before, and that hadn't changed. So, rather than sit hopelessly by and wait, I just kept flipping the remote, which never left my hand. It was something I could do on my own, and I could use what I learned to become more independent, all of which helped me get through the day.

Photos, with Joan to narrate the backstory, became another important way for me to learn about who I was, what I'd done, and where we'd been together. Joan had started organizing our twenty-seven years' worth of photos together into cardboard photo storage boxes, categorized and divided by month, year, and subject and kept in her home office. Sometimes she'd mention a place like SeaWorld, I'd ask what it was, and she'd say, “You want me to show you a photo of when we went there?”