Miles To Go Before I Sleep by Jackie Nink Pflug

living in London, England, where he served in the air force.
    Susan was in the hospital for surgery to remove cancerous growths in her brain. She’d already had several operations, but the tumors kept reappearing in different places. She was partially deaf from the surgeries and, after the next operation, doctors feared she’d also be blind.
    Hearing Susan’s story made me realize I had nothing to complain about. I remember thinking, Boy, and I think I have it bad. At least I’m not losing my hearing.
    Besides, I was still overjoyed just to be alive. Early on, I didn’t think much about the long-term effects of my injuries. Mostly, I was just glad to be alive. I had expected each hour on the plane to be my last. Now, here I was in a German hospital, with Scott and doctors all around me. I felt so grateful. My prayers were answered. Who wouldn’t be happy about that?
    Scott and I joked around in the hospital. I asked him to take some pictures of my bald head. I wanted to look good for my homecoming, but I was bald and my face looked bruised and raggedy. Scott went out and bought me a wig.
    He came back and said, “This looks just like your hair.”
    I looked at the wig in his hands and blinked twice. Who were you married to before? was my thought. The wig was this wild hair that hung down almost to my waist! Before the hijacking, my hair was cut short—just barely over my ears.
    â€œScott, I can’t wear this!” I said. We both broke out laughing. He took the wig back.
    I thought everything was going to be okay. Scott and I would go to live in Minnesota. I’d meet some new friends and eventually get a job. Life would move on and we’d be okay.
    One day, shortly after I arrived in Germany, a U.S. Army psychiatrist came into my room. He walked over to my bed and sat down. He seemed like a kind man—something in his eyes told me that. “Sometimes,” he said, “people who have been in warlike situations, or gone through rapes, major accidents, criminal assaults, or other traumatic events experience posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD],” he said.
    I’d never heard of PTSD before. “What does that mean exactly?” I asked.
    â€œSometimes, there’s a delayed emotional reaction to the event,” he explained. “You may find yourself crying or feeling bad in a few days, weeks, or months.”
    Before the psychiatrist left, he told me to call him if I needed anything or just wanted to talk.
    His words didn’t really have much effect on me. I was still so excited to be alive that nothing else mattered. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have any hair. It didn’t matter that I’d gone through a hijacking or that I’d had to leave the place I loved. I was alive!

    One day, a speech therapist came into my room to do some tests. The first question she asked was what I did for a living. I couldn’t remember. I knew I was a teacher in Cairo, but what kind? I looked at Scott and said, “Why can’t I remember what I did?”
    â€œDon’t you remember?” he said. “You’re a teacher. You’re an educational diagnostician. And you tested kids.”
    When he said it, I thought, Yeah, that’s what I did. I tested kids.
    She asked me another question about teaching and testing.
    Again, I couldn’t remember the answer. I look at Scott and, again, he said, “Don’t you remember? …”
    I just kept looking at him and saying, “Why can’t I remember this?”
    No one in the hospital had asked me these kinds of questions before. They had asked for my name and that was about it.
    The speech therapist showed me a series of flash cards with different pictures on them. First, she flashed me a black-and-white drawing of a watermelon.
    I knew what a watermelon tasted like. I knew it was green on the outside and red on the inside. But I couldn’t remember what it was