Wondering Who You Are

Lea, Sonya. Wondering Who You Are. Portland, Oregon: Tin House Books. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

The night before my husband's cancer surgery, I stay up to watch him sleep... 

We have been married  for twenty-three years. I have been a child and a woman with this man. To imagine his death is to imagine the end of myself: I cannot know this loss.

Description:

In Sonya Lea's highly personal and moving memoir, Wondering Who You Are, the author's husband, Richard, emerges from a successful operation for his appendix cancer, but now has as no memory of who he is, who his wife is, or anything else about his past. He can recognize some faces, recall certain facts, but recalls nothing about "the working narrative of one's life, one's autobiography." His short term working memory and his ability to retain information is completely gone.

Richard has lost his memories of some things -- out marriage history, major events in the children's lives -- but not others: Hamlet's soliloquy and the Superman monologue.

Thus begins the journey of Sonya to reclaim her husband and their lives, along with the questions raised regarding the medical profession. She explores every avenue to understand and possibly restore Richard's memory, from medical to spiritual to supernatural. Throughout the months after the "anoxic insult" (brain injury), they relocate to new states, take on new roles, and learn insights into each other. 

Through it all their relationship is always the center of every action. She is forced to reassess their 20+ years of marriage, who she was in that relationship, her challenges with drinking, her anger, and what their new life might be should Richard recovery his ability to remember the past. She (and Richard) find they must reassess their own personal lives and how to move on in their relationship, alone or together. But will they be able to (or want to) resume their previous lives or be forced to start over and form new memories?

Life after cancer eats what isn't true, our outworn notions, the ideas we hold on to because we want to do life "right," which mostly means what other people want us to do. But the body doesn't die. The body changes form, goes on to be dust of food or firmaments. That personality, though, that story we grow attached to: dead, dead, dead.  

This is tragic memoir of a medical error and the repercussions suffered by two people. But it is also a truly honest love story, where a couple faces tremendous challenges to their identities as separate individuals and also as two people joined in marriage. Religion, professional work, parenting, ambitions, and even everyday conversations present new problems that must be dealt with, often in surprising ways.

How can they live with each other? How can Sonya ever accept Richard's new personality? And, depending on Richard's health, what does the future hold for them together or apart?

Patients [of brain injury] do not "recover" in the sense of returning to their previous lives. Many of Richard's deficits were likely to remain, and my work would be in accepting him as he is.

While this memoir may sound overwhelmingly depressing, it actually is a moving account of the strengths and weaknesses of people facing awful situations that force them to into uncomfortable decisions. The strength of Sonya and the determination of Richard are inspiring. The book forces readers to ask, "What would I have done if faced with these challenges? Could I attack the problems as Richard and Sonya do, or would I simply collapse in frustration and hopelessness?" 

These are ordinary people in extraordinarily heartless conditions. How they address their changing lives is endlessly absorbing.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Watson, S.J., Before I Go to Sleep

A woman wakes one morning with no memory of where she is or even who she is. There is a greying man snoring in bed beside her who she doesn't recognize. She can function during the day, but awakes each morning with no memory. Who can she trust to tell her who she really is and who is working against her? (previously reviewed here) 

Special Post - Dealing With Cancer

Highly recommended books that discuss personal and professional aspects of cancer from writers including Christopher Hitchens, John Diamond, Will Schwalbe, Susan Halpern, and Siddhartha Mukharjee. (previously reviewed here)