I have just finished reading Left Neglected by Lisa Genova. This was a fascinating story of a young woman, living with her husband and three kids in Boston. She is a high powered executive with a very busy life. One day, on her way home from work she was using a cell phone and got into a car accident. When she woke up two weeks later in the hospital she had left neglect. Left neglect is a real neurological syndrome that occurs due to damage of the right hemisphere of the brain from a stroke or accident. People with left neglect are not blind, but rather their brains ignore information on the left side of the world, including the left side of their bodies.
In this story, the woman’s husband entered the hospital room and started talking. She asked him to move to her right.
He said, “Just turn your head left.”
She said, “I can’t. I have no left.”.
He said, “Just turn your head and you’ll see me.”
She said, “Tell me everything you see in this room.”
He said, “The window, your bed, a chair, and the bathroom.”
She said, “What if I told you there was another half to this room you missed. Just turn your head to see it. Where would you turn?”
He said, “I don’t know.”
She said, “Exactly!”
It’s a great book with many story lines, including a mother/daughter relationship that comes together after 30 years of estrangement. Living with left neglect and changing your life to do so is an inspirational story that leaves you thinking.
After reading this book, I have come to realize that sometimes I make too much of the heartaches in my life and need to give gratitude everyday for being able to put my two feet on the floor and put on my bathrobe without having to look for my right arm and leg. My heartaches are insignificant to the mountains this woman had to climb each day.
And so, as another day goes by, living with less is truly living with more, and …I have written.
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