THE VEGETABLE GARDEN IN THE LOBBY

The Vegetable Garden in the Lobby

   Two weeks into my stroke and in a rehab facility, I found myself in what I've come to call the vegetable garden in the lobby.
   Although my body is destroyed, paralyzed on my left side and unable to do much more than think, sometimes I feel like I am still here, somehow. still alive.  Yet again, I found myself in this lobby of the damned, my company profoundly brain damaged women.  One they called 'Toady', who is in this thing resembling a hand truck and who spends every waking hour screaming bloody murder, and another woman, a de-animated Trish Takanawa from Family Guy who just stares out into space,  drools and makes these ungodly noises with her throat.  There's a few others there, equally unresponsive.
   I looked from these women to myself and tried to find the common denominator, the reason why we were all grouped together again.  I thought there had to be some mistake, that I was nothing like them, there was no connection except for where we were.
   There was a sweet woman who worked behind the front desk in the lobby.  She brings me my daily schedule for physical therapy every morning and always has a smile and a twinkle in her eyes when she sees me, something that showed me she sees me, that she sees past the diaper wearing, paralyzed woman in the wheelchair.  She saw me looking over at her and came over to me, to ask me if there was anything she could do for me.
   " Please," I asked her as clearly as I could, gesturing to my fellow 'plants' in the lobby, " I need to know what the common thread is, why we are grouped together every time I'm brought out here."
   For the first time, I saw her smile fade, the twinkle dim and she looked away.  With my one good arm, I reached up towards her.  " Please! ", I pleaded,  " I have to know, I need to know. "
   " Forgive me," she answered, " We go by statistics.  All the patients who have no phone calls, no visitors and no inquiring calls to the doctors are brought out to the lobby to help, so it wont seem like they're alone and have no one who cares. "  She looked away and apologized again.  I tried my best to smile and thank her.

   For a moment, I thought of using my cell phone later to call my room, to make believe I was someone else who cared for me, that I was important enough for someone to want to talk to me, to try and fool the staff that somehow, someway, I mattered to someone, that I was worth a phone call and the time that took.
   But that, in itself, seemed even more pathetic and tragic than finding myself in the vegetable garden for another day.  I realized, were it not for this room, this garden, I would never have noticed this mirror that sees far beyond any looking glass I've ever seen.  Maybe this was my secret garden and the reflection I was about to see has been my destiny all along.

THE PRICE OF ADMISSION

THE PRICE OF ADMISSION

In my dreams
I'm in an airplane
flying into the darkness 
alone, shoeless
The walls of the plane
are painted bright red
with water running down them
hard and steady
like blood 
falling from an open sky
The floor is covered in snow
there are no lights out the windows
it's cold
I'm holding my beating heart
in my own hands
as it turns to sand
and slips through my fingers
when I notice
there's a toll booth
up ahead.

10/30/2004



   I wrote that years ago, when I knew there would be a day when I would have to pay for my sins.  I never thought my price would be so high or my penance could ever be so great, my insight behind it so blindingly clear, that I would find myself where I am now.
  There's no way to defend myself, nothing to justify any of it, no chance to find peace or redemption, to find just one solitary thing to hold on to to give my life meaning.  It's a brutal, horrifying lesson to be taught what would happen if you died while you were still alive, to know that you have made no difference and left no void.
   I found out about myself - and owned it two weeks after having a massive right hemisphere stroke, leaving me paralyzed, unable to speak correctly, sight and thoughts compromised, unable to even sit up without falling over.  It was truly my lowest, darkest point ever.
   I was placed in a sub-acute rehab hospital, well known for its intensive brain injury program.  It only took me a short time to realize what kind of place I was in and how profoundly damaged and impaired I was.  The unit was like The Snake Pit, with screaming and yelling, lots of noise and chaos. The most evident was how absolutely alone and abandoned I was, how different I felt and how unfamiliar just being seemed.  I often wondered if I was the  only one who knew I was still alive.
   Every day, my roommate's family and friends visited.  Every day, she was brought lunch, dinner, books, gifts, coffee.  For hours I would hear them talking, telling stories, reading, laughing.  And every day I wondered where my family and friends were.  I was taken to the Vegetable Garden in the Lobby and I understood.