The hardest part of this whole thing isn’t what’s happened—it’s really about what’s going to happen in the future. I’m beginning to understand how integrated David was into my life. You know you will be to live without him eventually, but it requires a whole new skill set to get acquainted with your new disability.
It’s the smallest of things that have the greatest impact. If you want to know what I am talking about, just write with your left hand for the next twenty minutes if you are a righty. You’ll likely get frustrated and want to give up, and you likely will. Now chop your hand off.
Okay don’t really chop your hand off.
But there are so many minute things that, apparently, I was extremely dependent on David with to help me fulfill or make bearable. Trying to do those things now is awkward at best, and most times I find myself just giving up, or not doing it at all in the first place. Many amputees report the ghost limb after they lose a limb. I definitely feel the same: I’ll be plugging along at something and be like, “Cool, so DP can do that piece, or we’ll just get that done Saturday.” Keep going and then realize I need to rework the plan to accommodate for the loss.
But it’s reinvention time. Lose a leg, get a prosthetic limb. Do they make a prosthetic brother? That would actually be kind of creepy, scratch that idea.
