Welcome back.

Went I went to grad school, there were 3 other students who entered the program at the same time. There were no returning students that year, so we were a tight knit group. One of that group, Bev, was a woman who had had a daughter and spent her life raising her and was now going to finally be what SHE wanted and get her MFA in directing. She is a really fine director and had started making a career for herself in Chicago when, a year ago Sunday, she was hit by a bus while walking across the street. There was severe brain damage and she has basically been re-learning everything about who she is and the world in general. On the anniversary of her accident, her daughter and she were riding a bus down the street where she had lived before the accident and that part of her place in the world all came rushing back to her. As the bus rolled past the places she had visited, shopped and lived she started to remember where she fits in the world. In her own words, as transcribed by her daughter in a blog, "I feel like I've been away for a long time, and I finally just got back."

I have failed, in this year, to go and visit my friend. Partly because I shy away from these kinds of moments, partly because I allow myself to be driven by my schedule, and partly because I was afraid to see this, one of the smartest and most vibrant people I have ever known, brought low by her injuries. I am saddened by my own inactivity, but feel that at least the prayers of me and many, many other people have been answered, and Bev is coming back. Maybe now I can find my own way back to her, even through all my whining.