I first met this man toward the end of May 1943, almost three months after he had been wounded. In order to follow the course of his illness, I saw him fairly regularly over a period of twenty-six years (weekly or, at times, at longer intervals). As our friendship developed, I had a chance to witness his long, relentless fight to recover the use of his damaged brain—to live, not merely exist.
The first time he entered my office in the rehabilitation hospital, I was struck by how young he looked. He seemed scarcely more than a boy, who looked at me with a puzzled smile and tilted his head awkwardly to one side. (Later I learned that the vision on his right side was gone, and in order to see, he had to shift sideways.)
I asked how he was getting on, and after some hesitation he replied shyly, “Okay.” The question of when he had been wounded, however, threw him for a loss.
“Well, you see . . . it’s, it’s . . . a long time already . . . must be two, three . . . what’s the word? . . .”
What town was he from?
“At home . . . there’s . . . I want to write . . . but just can’t.”
Did he have any relatives?
“There’s . . . my mother . . . and also—what do you call them?”
Obviously he did not understand my questions at first, and even after he did, had difficulty replying. Each attempt to do so led to a frantic struggle for words.
“Try reading this page,” I suggested to him.
“What’s this? . . . No, I don’t know . . . don’t understand . . . what is this?”
He tried to examine the page more closely, holding it in front of his left eye, then moving it further to the side and scrutinizing each of the letters in amazement. “No, I can’t!” was all he could reply.
“All right, then, just try to write your first name and home town for me.” This, too, led to a desperate struggle. Awkwardly he picked up the pencil (by the wrong end at first), then groped for the paper. But again he could not form a single letter. He was beside himself, he simply could not write and realized he had suddenly become illiterate.
I suggested he try to do something simple with numbers, like add six and seven.
“Seven . . . six . . . what’s it? No, I can’t . . . just don’t know.”
“Well, then, take a look at this picture and tell me what you see. It’s called ‘Hunters at a Resting Place.’ ”
“Over here there’s . . . he’s . . . he’s sitting. . . . And this one here is . . . is . . . And there’s this . . . I don’t know! Certainly is something there, but . . . but what’s it called?”
I then asked him to raise his right hand.
“Right? Right? . . . Left? . . . No, I don’t know. . . . Where’s my left hand? . . . What does right mean? . . . Or left? . . . No, I can’t do it.”
He made a desperate effort to answer my questions and acutely sensed each failure.
“Well, then,” I suggested, “tell me what you remember about the front.”
“By then . . . we were . . . were in a bad way. Had to retreat . . . would lose everything. So I decided that, that . . . if that’s the way things were . . . I was told to . . . how many? Five. . . . But then I was out of the hospital and, and . . . then . . . the attack. I clearly remember it . . . for then, then . . . then I was wounded. . . . That’s all.”
It was painful for him to try to describe what was still fresh in his memory; he simply could not find the words with which to begin. I asked him if he knew what month it was.
“Now? What’s the word? . . . It’s, it’s . . . May!”
And he smiled. Finally he had come up with the right word. When I asked him to list the months of the year, he managed to do this with relative ease and again felt reassured. But when I asked him to list them in reverse order, he had endless difficulties.
“What month comes before September?” I asked him.
“. . . before September? What’s the word? . . . September? October? . . . No, that’s not right. . . . It just doesn’t come. . . .”
“What season is there before winter?”
“Before winter? After winter? . . . Summer? . . . Or something! No, I can’t get it.”
“Before spring?”
“It’s spring now . . . and . . . and before . . . I’ve already forgotten, just can’t remember.”
What did these desperate, futile attempts to remember mean?
His response to nature was as keen as ever. He enjoyed the quiet and calm of his surroundings, listened intently to the sounds of birds, and noted how smooth the lake’s surface became on a still day. He wanted very much to respond, to accomplish whatever was asked of him. Each failure only renewed his sense of loss.
He had no trouble listing the months of the year. Why, then, couldn’t he tell me what month precedes September, or indicate his left and right hands? Why was he unable to add two simple numbers, recognize letters, write, remember common words, or describe a picture? In short, what type of brain injury had damaged these faculties, yet spared not only his immediate grasp of the world but his will, desire, and sensitivity to experience, allowing him to evaluate each and every failure?