Not Fade Away: A Memoir of Senses Lost and Found Read Online Free PDF Page A

were all together in my parents’ room.
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    For a long time we existed in this strange limbo where my parents would take turns staying with us. My dad would stay in the in-law unit at a family friend’s house when he was gone, and my mom rented a tiny basement room at the back of a neighborhood house, where I would sometimes want to stay, finding it too unbearable to be away from her for very long, and wanting to protect her and keep her company. I would lie huddled under a purple sleeping bag on the futon that I shared with her, in that lonely room, with nothing but a tiny bathroom and a mini fridge, and wonder how on earth it had come to this. How could she rather be here than with my dad, in our house? What could be so terrible that she would choose this over having our familytogether? I didn’t blame her, though, because I, too, was sometimes afraid of my dad’s temper, though he was also the kindest, most generous man I knew. I just wanted things back the way that they had been.
    Peter felt badly for my dad. He was the eldest and so strong in his conviction that we were the perfect family that he still says it to this day. Always the peacemaker, he just wanted my mom to give our dad another chance. At the time, Danny seemed to be the most unscathed of the three of us, walking the line as he continued to get excellent grades in school and kick ass in every sport he played.
    At the time, and even now, the memories feel inextricably linked: my vision problems, my parents’ separation, and the new life Danny, Peter, and I would begin as we learned the divorce shuffle, living out of duffel bags as we ping-ponged our way between our old house, now empty of the laughter and music that had filled it, and my mother’s new one, which felt cold and foreign. My brothers and I, always close, drew even tighter around one another. We were never alone, and we didn’t talk about the divorce or about our feelings much, we just stuck together. We still argued: I took too long to get ready; Peter was bossy, always trying to parent us; and Danny was the loudest, always talking and singing, cracking us up even when he was irritating. But we were a team. Everything else might have been changing, but not the three of us.
    If I had been given a choice then to have perfect eyes or my family back together, I would have picked the latter in a heartbeat. It was a much more devastating blow, even as I could feel my vision getting worse, and even though we were starting to notice, in what seemed to be an entirely unrelated problem, that I was having trouble hearing aswell.

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    W hen my parents got separated and I was diagnosed with RP, they thought it would be best for me to start seeing a therapist. Not Dan or Peter, just me. Looking back I guess it made sense, but it confused me all the same. And it reinforced what I already believed to be true: I was the messed-up one. I was the one who was sneaky, who had a disability, who didn’t do as well in school. I was the one who needed help, and I hadn’t yet connected the help I needed to my disability.
    Jamie’s office was in a modern building above Market Hall in Rockridge, and I would sit in a big, comfy chair, trying to focus on anything but my parents’ divorce—that’s what I thought I was supposed to be talking about—and my thoughts would drift to the delicious food smells wafting up from the market. All I wanted to do was go downstairs to get a piece of the delicious focaccia I could smell. Why couldn’t I be down there eating, or with my friends, or even home with my brothers, rather than sitting here alone in a room with a grown-up doing my best to talk about anything but my feelings?
    So we made a deal. She would take me down and buy me focaccia, and then we would go back up to her office and I would talk to her. There was something about eating, and focusing on the food, rather than the emotions, that made it easier for me to talk. Sometimes we’d play board