I haven't told you that you cried.
So many things you don't remember--
won't remember--
as thousands of neurons shuddered and died...
We've given you our anecdotes,
what we remembered in your stead:
sandwiches and doctors' names and funny quotes.
A CAT scan, an MRI--pictures of your head.
But your eyes went wide once
when I said something you should have known.
A burden you'd borne months ago
tearing anew at your heart.
No test they could run
could measure the damage the thought had done.
And your eyes were pale blue, and wet,
and wide.
I was alone with you--
and you can't understand how I missed you.
You were panicked
and sad.
You looked old for once,
old and pathetic and weak.
You were trying so hard
and failing,
knowing you shouldn't fail.
And your watery blue eyes were pale
as you urgently confessed your fear.
I held your hand and tried consoling you--
and you frightened me more than ever before
because I couldn't help,
no matter how I tried.
And though you want to know what happened,
I'll never tell you that you cried.

03/20/2008

Author's Note: On Sunday, 16 March 2008, my dad suffered an attack of transient global amnesia and lost about seven months of memories for about six hours. He recovered fine, but those six hours are still a mystery to him. He's a college professor, an intellectual who relies heavily on his mind (and whose mind is admired by all who know him), and when he became disoriented that day, he grew increasingly upset because he knew he should remember things and didn't know why he couldn't. Fortunately, he doesn't remember being upset because he doesn't remember those six hours. But I remember them. And they terrified me, especially when I saw him choke up, scared by why he couldn't remember simple things, like what class he had to teach the next day. In the days of his recovery, he asked us to tell him what happened in those six hours, and we've told him just about everything we could remember--except I never told him that he cried in panic and fear. My dad is a strong man, with a great deal of dignity. He never needs to know how that incident reduced him. But I needed to express how it makes me feel to keep that secret from him. So I wrote this.

Posted on 04/03/2008
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