ALL THE WOUNDED

The wound was barely visible but it changed all their lives. A rain slicked road, a tree, a rental car with faulty brakes, a car driven by a father--filled with laughing children on their way to their lakeside vacation home.

But there was no vacation. The father’s young son lay for 536 days, blinking with sightless eyes, random movements, shattering silence. The mother at his side—always. The sister and brother amble in and out, uncomfortable with this silent stranger who looks like their brother but is not. It’s too painful for the father.

The wound is deep within his brain. Irreversible. The doctors say there’s no hope but his mother doesn't hear. For 536 days she sits with him, plays Abbey Road, his favorite album, massages him with Vitamin E oil, sings to him, writes in a journal, sees something in a perceived smile that no one else sees.

The day he turns 14, they bring balloons and festive streamers. Weave them around the machinery that monitor his existence, if you can call it existing. Presents are opened. Discarded gift wrap lays on the bed. The sister holds close to him the push-button toy that makes music noises and bright lights. He looks beyond it and blinks. Above his bed is a picture of the boy at his 12th birthday, blowing out candles, radiant smile, eyes bright with the joy of that moment. Unrecognizable.

Back at home, everything looks the same but the palpable aura of melancholy swallows anyone who steps within its midst. They bring casseroles and shed tears but then they stop coming. Who can blame them for not wanting to be infected by the inescapable sorrow. Life goes on, they say....but not for this family.

A year and a half later, on a rare night that no one is by his side, the boy develops pneumonia. An emergency call is placed. A mother and father have to make a snap decision whether to put their youngest son on life support. There's no time to waste. Sadly, heroically, they make the most difficult--or perhaps the easiest--decision of their lives. They decline medical intervention and alone, the child quietly dies. As quietly as he'd lived for the 536 days--when the exuberant boy fell silent.

Did he know something we don't understand? On some level, did he wait until he was alone; somehow sensing everyone's pulsing waves of fear and hope and love. Try to make the inescapable truth easier for everyone.

He always was a generous boy. His sister wishes she'd appreciated it more.