My Life, Deleted Read Online Free PDF

couldn’t even remember a high-powered activity that required experience, skill, and a love I’d probably felt my entire life.
    â€œNot that kind of pilot,” Joan said quickly. Not wanting to overwhelm me with information, she briefly explained that we’d worked together for the past several years on two aviation businesses—one that chartered jets, which we’d recently sold, and one that managed and maintained planes for other companies.
    By then Joan was crying too. I didn’t know exactly why but thought maybe we were thinking the same thing—how could I have forgotten so much just from hitting my head? It wasn’t until about a month later that I learned that if my vision problem didn’t clear up, I would never fly again. That’s what Joan was thinking at that moment; she just didn’t have the heart to tell me.
    Joan stood by my bed, kissed my forehead, and rubbed my chest through the gown. I didn’t really like being touched like that, but I went along with it.
    â€œI know how I can make you feel better,” she said, moving her hand down under the hospital covers and playfully touching my private area. Startled, I batted her hand away, wondering what the hell she was doing. I felt uncomfortable, that her hand didn’t belong there. Joan looked surprised, as if this was completely out of character for me, but I was in too much pain to worry about her feelings. I had unwittingly become a forty-six-year-old virgin who didn’t even know what sex was.
    When Grant showed up around lunchtime, Joan went home to shower and change. She told me she was dressed up because she’d been heading to a fancy charity luncheon—whatever that was—when she got the call to come to the ER.
    Grant described more memories, trying to find a trigger to retrieve some of the moments we’d shared while he was growing up. He told me that he’d started riding motocross dirt bikes at twelve and that I used to watch him compete in hockey and motocross. He competed in several national races and at the pro level in Arizona, quitting when he was eighteen, just a year or so ago.
    â€œDo you remember any of that?” he asked hopefully.
    â€œNo, I’m sorry,” I said.
    It was clear from his disappointed expression that this wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but I was trying to be honest with him. I was starting to pick up on how much my memory loss was making my family sad; it was as if I’d taken something precious away from them by forgetting the positive events that had shaped our relationships and strengthened the bonds between us. And no matter what the doctors said, none of us knew if we would ever get that back.
    Valiantly, my son asked more questions, still searching for something I could remember—anything—until, drugged and fatigued, I dozed off.
    When I came to, Grant was curled up on the foldout where Joan had slept the night before, sobbing. I didn’t understand why a young man would be so emotional. It seemed a bit over the top; it wasn’t like I was going to die from this head injury.
    â€œWhy are you crying?” I asked.
    Grant sniffed and grabbed a tissue to blow his nose. “It just makes me sad that you don’t remember anything that we did together,” he said.
    I didn’t know what else to say other than to repeat the doctors’ optimistic prognosis. “It’ll get better,” I offered.
    This seemed to calm him down, and I felt I’d done all I could. So, like any two typical men, we stopped talking about our feelings and watched TV in silence.
    Joan returned soon afterward, and Taylor showed up after school later that afternoon.
    Joan, who kept leaving the room to make phone calls, told me she still hadn’t heard from Thomas. I didn’t know she was talking about my business colleague, but I eventually got the picture: she, Taylor, and I were all supposed to take Thomas’s