Crumb – Accident Memories

I came across a little gem/not-gem today sorting a stack of files about my accident. It’s my wife’s pocket notebook from when I first went to the hospital. On 5/31, amid other observations about my living and dying and the tubes pumping in and out of my body, she noted:

“Also, you said I looked sad.”

This breaks my heart even now, five whole years later later. She writes that I seemed confused, and I was , but I’ve always said the recovery was easy for me: I didn’t now what happened, never really experienced it, and – at least at first – was doped up like a figure in a Munch painting. But even then, even with all this stuff, even flashing in and out of conciseness, I saw her sadness. I know now that she wondered how to take care of the girls by herself and how she would tell them I was gone.

Whew. Tough.