Warrior Pose (28 page)

I remember that there was always a family member at the bedside of every wounded Afghan, but few in the ward where the Pakistani mercenaries were being treated. The people by the wounded Afghans' bedsides were there around the clock, praying and loving them in their own quiet and reserved ways.
That was it
.
The reason so many seriously wounded Afghans managed to survive against such enormous odds was due to the power of love.
In much the same way, Ethel's love for Fred the Duck is helping him through one last season, and Fred's love is helping me along, even though I might not get another season in my life as a foreign correspondent.

Pamela has returned from Hong Kong and is with me now, as supportive as ever. We go to the pool, sit by the bay, take walks when I feel capable. I tell her about Fred and Ethel, who seem to have disappeared. It's the only big story in my life these days, far from the sort of news I used to report. One morning, as I'm lying on my back on the living room floor, I hear Fred's familiar quack. Then a chorus of tiny quacks. Suddenly, Fred and Ethel proudly enter the room with eight ducklings in tow. I whisper for Pamela to come in from the bedroom and meet the family. We're all introduced, and soon a few of the ducklings hop over my legs and jump onto my belly. Then they waddle off. Fred gives me a glance and cocks his head to signal a final good-bye before winging into the sky. He's in bad shape, but at least he can still fly.

It's been a year now. Countless failed treatments. Thousands of pills. Gallons of wine. Scores of cheap novels. Endless false hopes. I know it in my heart. I have to face the truth. My time is up. I've lost the
battle. There will be no return to my career. No more global travel. No more reports on
Nightly News
. No more of the life I loved more than life itself. I feel resentment, anger, fear, and failure.

I take the letter from NBC promising to hold my job, crumple it into a ball and hurl it against the wall. It hits with a crispy thud and falls behind the couch. Then I limp to my lounge, lean over to my computer, and compose a brief good-bye email to my former colleagues at the network before I'm deleted from the system. I make it as upbeat as possible, but I feel like a fraud trying to sound so positive. There's a final visit with Dr. Garfin at UCSD, but it's only a formality. Like a bird that can no longer fly, I'm officially declared:

PERMANENTLY DISABLED.

CHAPTER 16

First Prayer

T
HIS IS PARADISE. I wish I lived here!”

This is what we hear from most everyone who visits Coronado. It's a stunning place, nestled in San Diego Bay with sunny skies, beautiful beaches, and world-class resorts. Ever since it was founded in 1885, it's been a destination for the rich and famous from around the world. On any given day you can hear a dozen languages during a walk along the beach in front of the historic Hotel del Coronado, sitting like a Victorian jewel facing the Pacific Ocean.
The Wizard of Oz
was written in Coronado. Its author, Frank Baum, used the hotel as inspiration for his Emerald City, and the city's main street for the Yellow Brick Road.

At the same time, Coronado is a quaint village of 30,000 residents that seems like a throwback to the 1950s, with small cafes and shops, quiet streets, and cozy homes. Despite the ridiculous cost of real estate, families often go to great lengths to move here just so their children can attend the excellent public and private schools. It's also a military town. On the north end of Coronado there's a Naval air base and on the south end, a Special Warfare Command, where the legendary Navy SEALs are trained. Retired admirals live on the village's best streets in luxurious homes made affordable by their generous pensions.

Now that I'm classified as “permanently disabled,” staying in Coronado is the logical choice, especially with my family here. But
despite its charm and quality of life, I can't get used to it. Without my career, I don't know who I am anymore and I'm no longer comfortable in my own skin. My body brace feels like a prison cell, especially with the thick metal shaft on the left side that runs down my sciatic leg and straps onto my thigh just above my knee. Even with this addition, I have to use my cane to further stabilize myself on my increasingly rare walks. I'm not sure which hurts more, my back or my heart. I just want to click my heels together like Dorothy did in the
Wizard of Oz
, whisper “There's no place like home” three times, and miraculously be transported back to my home in Hong Kong, covering Asia for
The Nightly News
.

NBC was generous in providing a year with all expenses paid while I tried to heal and it continues to cover my health care. The network also compensated me well while I was a correspondent, covering all my expenses due to the requirements of living abroad and facing extensive travel. This allowed me to put almost every paycheck into a savings account, which was bolstered with stock from the parent company, General Electric. The savings are a godsend now, and the only sense of security I have. Almost every day, though, I wonder what will happen if and when the money runs out. It feels emasculating, like I can't take care of myself or fight back against whatever my fate might be.

Despite everything, Pamela and I share an abiding love for one another. We've decided to get married and are trying to establish a new life. I'm not sure I'm worthy of this any longer, but she's caring and compassionate and I need her more than ever, especially since my self-esteem plummeted after being declared permanently disabled. I often wonder if she feels love for the vibrant man I used to be and now holds more of a sense of obligation to the damaged and dependent man I've become. Given my lack of mobility, constant pain, and emotional fluctuations, I question my ability to be a good husband and meet her needs. Most of the time, I'm faking it—pretending to be happy and whole. This makes me feel guilty, weak, and inadequate.

I measure each day in handfuls of painkillers and antidepressants. With every dose, I get further away from any sense of who I am, and barely notice as time trudges by. It's all blurry. Slow motion. Months
soon become a year, and then two years. The changes in my body and mind are so gradual I don't really notice my continued weight gain, increased weakness, and personality problems. As a journalist I was paid to be cynical, wary, contentious, and probing. Targets of my investigative stories were adversaries, usually trying to conceal their corruption and misdeeds. Now, almost anyone can become an adversary at a moment's notice. I'm always looking for faults in others, finding hypocrisy that isn't there, criticizing and blaming. If I witnessed someone else doing this, I'd dismiss him or her as obnoxious and insecure, but I give myself permission.
After all,
I think,
I'm wounded. Life has been unfair. I have a right to be this way.

With my arsenal of medications, there are times I feel stable enough to attend social events and even take a rare vacation with Pamela, but there's always a price to pay. Just as I begin to feel I might be making a slight degree of progress in my ability to cope with this life, a wrong move triggers a sharp thrust of pain in my tailbone, then radiates up my back into my shoulder blades and shoots down my legs to my heels. Every time this happens I'm bedridden for days. It's so debilitating that I have to use a bedpan to relieve myself, which is profoundly humiliating and leaves me feeling even more frustrated and hopeless.

Even on good days, I can't sit or stand for even a short time without the tip of the ice pick stabbing me again and scaring me to death. I have to lie down for almost everything. We've bought a folding lounge chair on wheels to take to parties, dinners, the local movie theater, and Coronado's outdoor Sunday concerts at the park half a block from our home. Pamela packs the bulky lounge into the car, then has to drag it out, roll it to wherever we're going, and set it up for me. As a result, most people treat me differently, usually with a sense of care and compassion. I'm starting to realize what it's like to be the recipient of this. I'm touched to my core by the inherent goodness in so many people, yet I also feel embarrassed, and I instinctively recoil at being an object of pity.

Pamela also hosts dinner parties and does her best to keep me surrounded by people so that I feel engaged in the world. Yet even after two years, I have trouble relating to a suburban lifestyle. It's
like I've moved to a country where I barely speak the language. As a news correspondent, I lived in such a different world that it's more than not speaking the language. I often feel like an alien from another planet. I'm used to glib journalists, cynical expatriates, and wry world travelers who talk endlessly about foreign policy, global intrigues, and which area of the world is likely to be the next powder keg. The conversations in this new world are more domestic in nature, filled with nuances and references I don't understand. No matter how hard I try to fit in, something deep inside of me says
you don't belong
, and every time I hear this inner voice I simply shut down.

So I stay on the edges, keeping it light and happy, making small talk when I can, telling war stories only when invited. When I do share some of my past, I feel like a has-been, someone who used to be somebody, and now is a pathetic nobody. But the experiences from my journalistic past stay with me. I can't forget the men, women, and children I've seen tormented, crippled, and maimed from the ravages of poverty and cruelty of war. When people complain about traffic, a rude waiter, a foggy day, or their favorite team being beaten in this or that game, I think about how they don't seem to appreciate the comforts and conveniences—the good life—we have in America, especially here in Coronado. How ironic.
I've been dealt a bad hand, so I can complain,
I reason
, but everyone else had better not.

In hopes of fitting in better, I've started watching more TV. I feel like I have to learn which sport season it is and who to root for in the big game. You know, the one that comes up almost every weekend and has everyone talking and planning a barbecue. I also need to get reacquainted with the primetime dramas so I can comprehend the endless social references to characters, plot lines, and scenes that permeate all the small talk. I find it superficial and boring, but I do it anyway because I worry about coming off as some sort of elitist snob. The truth is that I don't feel better than these people in any way. I just feel broken, lost, and completely out of place.