Chapter 31

Every other year, the Harvard–Yale game is played at Yale, and Dave and I meet friends and family on the East Coast, where we go to the game and then stay in New York for Thanksgiving with my family.

At five months out from the stroke, November marked our first time flying with Lilly, and Dave’s first time flying since that horrible June night.

When I booked the flights in October I was deeply concerned—would it be too difficult, flying with both a five-week-old and Dave?

But, by November, Dave had improved enough that, rather than adding to my list of concerns, he could help me with the baby, getting her and all of the luggage and baby gear through security and onto the plane. Because his stroke had occurred on a plane, I was having some jitters, reliving the horrible memories. I checked the pupils of Dave’s eyes several times in the air to make sure there was not any asymmetrical dilation going on. He wore Lilly in a baby carrier for much of the flight, and the ride was smooth in every sense of the word.

We drove to New Haven for the game and were surrounded by loved ones in what is one of our favorite places on earth. Many close friends had visited Chicago and had an idea of the progress Dave had made, but other friends were seeing us for the first time since the stroke, and they all gave Dave big hugs and expressed their relief at how well he was doing. Lilly napped for most of the afternoon as she was passed from arm to arm. Dave had a beer at the tailgate—his first beer since the stroke. It was a sunny, chilly New England fall day, like so many other football games that we had enjoyed together over our eleven years as a couple. I thought many times throughout the day how grateful I was that Dave was there to enjoy it with us.

That night we went to one of New Haven’s iconic restaurants, Mory’s. The college tradition is to order big “Mory’s Cups,” large silver chalices that you pass around a big table, each person making a toast before taking a sip of the punch. We all made toasts; Dave’s was a bit shaky, a combination of goofiness and a genuine expression of his love for our new daughter. We laughed over past memories and shared our joy in the fact that Dave was there.

I knew how long a road we still had. I knew that, in so many ways, Dave still was not himself, certainly not the indomitable version of himself that had once thrived on this campus. A dear friend admitted as much to me, saying, “People keep commenting how great it is to see Dave doing so well, but I think people who don’t really know him that well don’t realize that he’s still not the old Dave.” She was correct.

That’s the thing about brain injury—it’s invisible. Dave looked like his old self, and so people who saw him would breathe a sigh of relief and say how great it was to see him, back to himself. Dave did not bear any scars, did not walk on crutches, showed no outward signs to testify to the wound from which he was very much still healing. It was like the time a work colleague of mine inquired after Dave on a phone call, asking: “Where is he right now?”

“At rehab,” I answered.

“How does he get to rehab?” this colleague asked.

“A car,” I said. “Someone has to drive him.”

“But…how does he get into the car?”

“He walks,” I said.

“Oh! He can walk! That’s great, I had no idea he was doing so well.”

Throughout Harvard–Yale weekend, that was the common refrain: an expression of relief and happiness to see Dave doing so well. Back to his old self.

We knew, however, how far he was from his old self. He could walk, yes. He looked like himself, yes. But that had never really been the issue—at least not since the earliest days in the ICU when he had recovered much of his motor ability. Others could not see Dave’s brain, could not understand that Dave’s injury was not physical so much as it was cognitive and behavioral. Others did not know, as I knew, how easily Dave still fatigued and how much sleep he still needed. How passive he was at times, unable to make a decision or initiate an action or remember a scheduled appointment. That he still struggled to remember formerly easy things, like the content of a recent conversation or a new acquaintance’s name. That he still found it challenging to do something as simple and seemingly second nature as log in to his online bank account or respond to an email.

But that weekend did remind us that we had cause to celebrate. That weekend, being surrounded by those who loved and rooted for Dave gave us hope for his continued recovery. Even just having Dave there, in that place where our love story began, was a cause for celebration. Had Dave died, that campus, the place of so much joy, would have become a place mired with heartbreaking memories. How bright will seem through memory’s haze, those happy, golden, bygone days. So goes the Yale alma mater. Literally every corner of that campus and its surrounding city is redolent with memories of us. I would never have been able to go back without seeing the locations of our courtship, reliving the beautiful beginning of our shared journey. But time and change shall not avail, to break the friendships formed at Yale. It was true; we had not been broken. At least, not yet.