Words hurt, especially when you can’t find them
Joan Didion called it the “vortex effect,” the sudden overwhelming grief triggered by a memory. After ten years that feeling…
Tag: #aphasia
Thinking can be dangerous to your health
A number of posts in this blog have mentioned the irony that Laura’s brain cancer first struck in the left…
Anne Mei’s Mother
In some cultures a woman’s name changes when she has her first child. She becomes known as “Mother of ______.”…
Doing aphasia
The last post ended with a caution that I was using nouns to talk about activities. I mentioned the six…
Aphasia hurts
A few months after Laura died I heard a podcast recording of a talk on grief by a Zen Buddhist teacher…
Living with aphasia
The dryer This incident happened in October 2008 after the operation on the infected plate on Laura’s head, described in the fly-by. I was struggling…
Aphasia: the phases
Aphasia told Laura there was a problem. For years she would sit next to Anne Mei on her bed and…
From the pain of aphasia to the aphasia of pain
Mention of Laura’s aphasia in a recent post reminded me how much pain the loss of her language skills caused Laura…
My dear grief
When I decided about two and a half years out that I really was becoming fond of someone else, I…
The team: three kiss-offs backstory 1
The surgeon had said that we would meet with his team the week after the biopsy. We thought that meant…