Dear Marcus: A Letter to the Man Who Shot Me by McGill Jerry

Author:McGill, Jerry [McGill, Jerry]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780679644606
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2012-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

INT. HOSPITAL ROOM—DAY

JEROME sits up in his wheelchair in front of a canvas. He is painting. He wears a splint on his right wrist and a paintbrush has been fitted into the slot, helping him to move the brush across the canvas. He goes to dip his brush into one of the cups of paint and he accidentally knocks the cup over. Red paint splashes onto the floor. Jerome tries to pick the cup up but he cannot reach it. He sighs in frustration. SUBTITLE: WITH ADJUSTMENTS COMES GROWTH

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I’m not certain that the notion that I would never walk again ever really, truly settled in while I was in the hospital. Yes, I accepted what Dr. Dempsey had told me and worked hard with my rehab team to enter into a new phase, but, again, when you are that age, Marcus, there are some things that your young, undeveloped brain simply cannot work around. There are things one simply cannot fully envision.

I think in a way this inability made things easier for everyone to manage. Who knows, had I accepted that reality early on I might have grown so despondent that my attitude would have been an impediment to my growth. Maybe I would have become a Negative Ned when I needed to be a Positive Pete. Is it possible that the mind works in such an ingenious manner that we take in only what we need to help us move forward and push down a lot of the gunk that will keep us mired in darkness? Surely this would explain how some of us process and ultimately repress early childhood traumas like molestation and child abuse, no?

I don’t really have any answers, but what I can tell you is that for the remainder of my time at St. Vincent’s I was a generally happy kid, focused on my goals and happy to celebrate every new achievement—and there were a lot of them. I remember in the beginning I had to wear those splints that Irit had made for me to perform all of my tasks. The splints were a workable solution but they were a bit of a nuisance as they were difficult for me to apply myself and I often needed help getting one on.

Then something remarkable happened. One morning I noticed a sharp pain in my left hand. I knew I hadn’t done anything to cause such pain to occur and it concerned me some. The discomfort grew over the course of two days to the point where I had to be given painkillers to make it bearable. The medical staff had no explanation for it and took to monitoring my discomfort level. The pain eventually subsided over the course of the week and when it was all gone I had made a brilliant discovery: I could move the fingers in my left hand, to the point where I could grasp and clench things. The fingers in my right hand were still essentially numb but in my left hand I had sudden strength and power.

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