I Forgot to Remember: A Memoir of Amnesia (30 page)

It was during my time as an officer for the honor society that I began to open up about the story of my head injury and my journey back to school. Marianne, the group’s president that year, wanted all of us to show up at the first planning meeting of second semester with a bag of objects that meant something to us personally, in order to promote a kind of bonding or team spirit
among all of us officers. One of the objects in my bag was the Dr. Seuss book
Hop on Pop.
I explained to everyone that the book was the first one I had ever read, and that I was twenty-two years old when I read it. I had never spoken to anyone other than my family and very close friends about any of this, so I have no idea what exactly prompted me to tell these fellow students and advisers the tale. Each person in that room was shocked, and when I finished speaking, everyone just stared at me. I was embarrassed and immediately regretted my decision about saying anything. But I had read their reactions incorrectly. It wasn’t “Wow! She’s odd.” Or, “You poor thing.” Or, “Get out of here, you weirdo!” It wasn’t any of those things. I don’t know what it was exactly, but it wasn’t anything critical. And after that, I felt a little less afraid, having gotten it off my chest.

Soon I was telling more and more people my story. After that meeting, Sue talked to Gus Griffin, one of the psychology professors and counselors at MC who specialized in memory. Gus wanted me to come and speak to his class about my injury and my life since. I said yes, simply because I couldn’t say no to professors, especially Sue. But I had no idea what I could possibly say to his students. About the same time, Kassidy was enrolled in a first-year seminar class at Barnard College all about memory. She told her professor, Alexandra Horowitz, about me, and Dr. Horowitz asked if I would be willing to come to Barnard and speak to her class as well. Again, I said yes. Again, I hadn’t a clue what I would talk about.

I hesitantly approached Jim and told him that I had been asked to speak both at Montgomery College and Barnard about my head injury. I asked if he would be willing to talk to me in greater detail about what happened the day of my accident, my
hospital stay, the time when I was first back home—anything, really, that I could possibly turn into some semblance of a speech or presentation. Those first conversations we had were the beginnings of what would become
the
great awareness and appreciation between Jim and me. It became clear at first that Jim didn’t have all the facts quite right. For some reason, he thought that my injury happened in the winter of 1988, right after the holidays. And he thought I had been in the hospital for eight weeks instead of just three. But those details were minor compared to everything I did learn from him. And all the things he learned from me, too. I ended up speaking to Gus’s classes every semester my last two years at Montgomery College. I traveled to Barnard twice to give talks to Dr. Horowitz’s first-year seminar. I spoke at my dad’s Kiwanis Club in Roanoke, Virginia, and was asked to speak at a meeting of business leaders in Montgomery County in the spring of 2011.

Sue Adler told me about the Paul Peck Humanities Institute scholarship program in the spring of 2010. There were opportunities for students at Montgomery College to intern for a semester at the Smithsonian, the Holocaust Museum, and the Library of Congress. The application process was grueling, but Jim helped me to write out a résumé, and assisted with endless essay revisions. I heard in August that I had been accepted to intern that fall in the music division at the Library of Congress. I could not have been more surprised, excited, and nervous all at the same time.

I started that great adventure right after Labor Day by riding on the MARC train to Union Station in Washington, D.C. (by myself), and then walking the few blocks to the Library of Congress’s Madison Building (by myself), which housed the music division. I
never got tired of that walk and was always amazed by people who just rushed by the Capitol building, the judicial buildings, and any number of other important government agencies, hunched over their cell phones with their heads down. Uncivil politics aside, Washington, D.C., is an important city, full of significant history. Prominent people have lived and worked there making influential decisions for hundreds of years, and I was awestruck each and every day.

My assignment at the Library of Congress that fall was to help organize and digitally catalog thousands of pieces of Civil War sheet music so they could be seen, accessed, and utilized by anyone in the world. The 150th anniversary of the Civil War was just around the corner, and this sheet-music project was to be part of a larger Civil War exhibition. My direct supervisor at the library was Mary Wedgewood. I was a little afraid of her at first because my typing and computer skills were less than adequate for such a task as this. I felt her frustration with me, and that made me nervous. But as time passed I grew to really love and respect her. (And my skills improved a bit, too). Mary encouraged me to go to the many varied noontime talks that were offered to library staff, everyone from authors, to historians, to scientists, to performing artists, to international celebrities. She invited me to meetings, took me to underground stacks, introduced me to lots of people, and got me involved in the annual Book Festival held on the National Mall. Mary genuinely wanted me to understand that the music division and my single project in that division was just one small part of the history and mission of the library. My experiences that semester were extraordinary.

As graduation from Montgomery Collge approached, I began thinking, What’s next? Sue Adler had invited me to roundtable
talks with admissions officers from Mount Holyoke College and Smith College. Both schools were small, elite women’s colleges in western Massachusetts that had first-rate programs for nontraditional students. Both schools were highly competitive, with rigorous application procedures, but Sue thought I was up to the task. She always had more confidence in me than I ever had in myself. I was accepted to Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and Columbia University. It was a tremendously difficult decision, but in the end, Smith felt like the right choice.

I received a phone call from Beth Homan, from the Office of Advancement and Community Engagement at Montgomery College, a week or so before graduation asking if I would be willing to talk to a reporter from the
Washington Post.
Every year, Montgomery College picked a few human-interest stories to pitch to the news media at graduation time. Daniel de Visé came to our house on a Friday. My parents and all three kids were there for the weekend to help celebrate my upcoming graduation, and thank goodness they were. I don’t think I said two words to Dan the whole time he was there because I was so scared about saying something stupid. Jim and Benjamin did most of the talking, filling him in on the injury and my long journey back to school. Matt McClain snapped photos for the forthcoming
Post
article, and let me know that he would meet me the following morning at the college to take more pictures of me on my big day.

Graduation itself was a blur of constant adrenaline. Everything from putting on my cap and gown, to lining up and walking to a huge tent with my fellow graduates, to speeches and receiving my diploma, to pictures, hugs, and congratulations. I can’t remember a happier day.

The next day was Sunday, and as I was in the shower getting ready for church, Jim came into the bathroom and said, “You’re going to want to take a look at the front page of the
Washington Post
when you finish your shower.” My first thought was that the United States had endured another terrorist attack. Imagine my surprise when I squinted to read the headlines. I grabbed my glasses and looked again. There I was on the front page of the
Washington Post
! Holy shit! Dan had written the most amazing, heartfelt piece, and I was instantly in love with the man and his ability to make words sound so perfectly put together.

Dan’s
Washington Post
article led to a BBC interview, a radio interview with
Elliot in the Morning
on DC101, and a spot on the
Today
show. All of that led me to Peter Steinberg, a literary agent in NYC, who helped Dan and me write up a proposal for this very book. Peter then helped me through what seemed like a million meetings with different publishing houses in New York to see what kind of interest there might be about a story such as mine. From Dan’s article to the signing with Peter and everything in between—it all happened in a matter of a few weeks.

It was a whirlwind of feverish activity, compounded by the fact that our house was on the market and we would be moving to Northampton, Massachusetts, that summer in order for me to start at Smith College in September. Life is never dull!

—Pink Floyd

M
onday, June 20, was just another hot and humid day in a long string of hot and humid days in Gaithersburg, Maryland, during the summer of 2011. I slept in a bit that morning, and by the time I finally walked Lucy and Linus, the summer swelter had surged past ninety degrees. After just half an hour, and only half of our regular walk, the dogs and I had definitely had enough, so we turned around and trudged home. While Linus chomped away on “ice treats” on the cool floor, I got myself a huge tumbler of ice water and sat down at our kitchen table to check my e-mail on our Mac laptop. Jim was working out of the house by this time, preparing for our move to Massachusetts later
in the summer, and had come up from his basement office to grab an early lunch.

As a result of all the media attention my story had gotten, I had been flooded with e-mails and Facebook friend requests from far and wide. There were a few weirdos, but for the most part people simply wanted to offer their support and share with me their own stories of personal struggles. I often felt humbled as I read what people wrote, and I tried my best to respond to everything that came to me. On this particular morning, as I scanned a dozen or so new friend requests, one in particular caught my eye. It came from a “Neal Moore.” The name sounded vaguely familiar, so I clicked on it, but there was no picture and not much information on his rather anonymous Facebook page. I immediately thought weirdo, but at the same time I was certain I had heard the name before. So I asked Jim if the name “Neal Moore” meant anything to him.

“Sure,” Jim said. “He was your high school boyfriend, the guy you were seriously dating when I met you.” At Jim’s words, I suddenly recalled Neal’s name occasionally coming up when Jim tried to tell me about my life—our lives, really—before he and I had met. I also vaguely remembered my parents talking about a Neal in some remote conversations. And then, yes, I was sure I had heard some mention of a former serious boyfriend by the few high school and college friends with whom I had reconnected over the years. I told Jim that Neal had contacted me on Facebook, and I asked if he would have a problem with my accepting his friend request. Jim just laughed and said, “No . . . Why would I?”