Early March 2012:A final Chapter Begins

    It had been over a month and a half since Danny left here for the last time...I thought it was the last time. I had seen and talked to him last over a month before. While away he had overflowed my cell with texts and voice mails every single day...apologies, promises, pleas, demands, threats and mostly just highly confused babble. You have no idea....every day for hours and hours... EVERY day!! It got so that I didn't text back or pick up his calls at all...when I did it was nonsense talk and demands to come home, arguing or confused banter about all sorts of things that were total UNreality. I turned my phone to silent much of the time, actually joked that I was "hiding" from my cell...So I read texts daily that either broke my heart and made me cry, or angered me tremendously. I listened to voice mails that made me want to throw my arms around him and just hold him til his pain went away....and many that made me very fearful of his actions.

    This brain injury stuff...its just so painful. When you think of it, the brain is where we live, its our persona, our being...who we are. It governs the smallest things from blinking when you see a gnat coming toward your eye, or making a decision when driving a car, knowing a fork goes into the food and progresses to your mouth, to detailing everything you are as a person...if you cut off someones head, there is just a body...the "person" is gone.
   
    There were always a million texts from Danny saying he was going to show up at my door. I ignored them knowing his mom and sister wouldn't let him take a cab or something to actually do it. For over a month and a half his sister and I had gone to tremendous lengths to meet away from the house so that I could take some of his money to her when he needed it...we used extreme caution. I continued scheduling his appointments but they took him to the few that were close by. I oversaw his medication changes. I tried to give my understanding and support to his family, but I knew deep down everything for us was ending. The last few times we had seen each other the time was sweet...until I had to leave. Trying to smack me, grabbing me, yelling, refusing to get out of my car so I could leave. We truly were at an impasse. But that particular Thursday and Friday he was texting and leaving voice mails saying his uncle (in my town) has cancer and he and his mom were coming up to stay the weekend and he would be arriving at my house.
I had the oddest feeling and fear that he would be here. I somehow instinctively knew it was a bad idea. We were going through a detachment process...well I was anyway. I didn't want him at the house anymore. I was not prepared to have Nick witness any more outlandish or violent behavior. I had made a decision last episode and needed to stick to it. I believed his family had the good sense to realize that first of all, I did not want him at the house, and to respect that, and more than that, how hard they were going to make it on Danny by bringing him and making him leave again. At 2pm, my front door opened and there they were...he and his mom. She was as cool as a cucumber, telling me they were staying in town the weekend and did I want her to stay WITH Danny. My first response was "What's the deal here? This is a bad idea. We will never get him to leave." She proceeded to chastise him as though he were a little boy, telling him not to "carry on" and to "be good". As she went on and on it frustrated Danny and he started stamping his feet and yelling at her to shut up. She said they were going home Sunday, and his reply was, "Doesn't mean I am."  I knew then I was going to have a real dilemma.