How Treating People With Brain Injuries Helped Me Forgive My Mother

After a lifetime of resentment, working with other T.B.I. patients finally helped me understand the riddle that is my mother's mind.

Illustrations by Micky Walls | Edited by Lilly Dancyger

I sat across the table from my client Matt, watching as he clicked away on his Kindle keyboard, presumably searching through his notes for clues as to what we had discussed during our session a week prior. “Ah, yes, found them,” he said a minute later. “It says here we planned a studying schedule for my physics final.”

“Did you follow the study plan we worked on?” I asked.

He paused, waiting for a cue. “I have no idea,” he said after realizing I wouldn’t be filling in the gap for him. “Let me search my notes.”