How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child by Sandra Uwiringiyimana & Abigail Pesta

Author:Sandra Uwiringiyimana & Abigail Pesta [Uwiringiyimana, Sandra]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-05-16T04:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

ALMOST THREE MONTHS AFTER DAD WENT into a coma, I came home from school one afternoon and heard the news: he woke up.

We rushed to the hospital. His eyes were open. His hands were moving. He could nod his head, but he couldn’t speak. He was still beat up, and hooked to the machines. His head remained wrapped in bandages. It was hard to look at him in that state, and I was nervous about talking to him. He looked different, distant, haunted. It reminded me of when Heritage came home, all bloody from serving as a child soldier, and I was afraid of him. Mom saw me eyeing my dad shyly.

“Hold his hand,” she said. I walked up to him and grabbed his hand, then quickly let it go.

Mom looked so happy that Dad was back with us again. The entire family was overjoyed. We could finally breathe. But my dad looked so vulnerable, it pained me to think that he had finally reached a point where he could help his family, only to end up helpless himself. The doctors warned us that Dad would have gaps in his memory. They advised us to be careful talking to him. They said that instead of telling him a lot of things about the past, we should try to help him remember things on his own.

He remained in the hospital through the winter months, working to regain his memory and physical movement. He gradually began to talk, but he was mixed up about where he was and what had happened. Soon it became clear that he had lost serious chunks of his memory. I grew more comfortable being around him, but wondered if he would ever be the same.

He came home with us to recuperate that spring. At first, he was disoriented, like a ghost of his former self. We had to remind him of so many things. He would misplace items around the house. He would ask us a question and we would answer, and then he would ask the same question thirty minutes later. It was a difficult time. I wanted my strong, invincible dad to come back, the man who dodged gunfire in the massacre and escaped with bullet holes in his shirt collar. But I realized he still was that man: He had survived not only a massacre, but a devastating body blow from a vehicle that had nearly taken his life. He had fought his way out of a three-month coma. He was, indeed, invincible.

We learned that the van had hit him at a crosswalk. He was crossing the street with his bike, when the van hit him and drove away.

Over the weeks, my dad’s memory returned, and his personality started to come back too. Being home, surrounded by his loved ones, helped him regain his sense of self. I was curious about what it had been like to be in a coma, and I peppered him with questions.

“Dad, how did it feel when you were in the coma?” I asked.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.