Overhead at The Grill

The Grill Master and His son:

Jimmy is back home! He came home mid-morning on Wednesday and their first meal together at the dinner table with their son(s) (my other brother still lives at home) home, pizza! They broke bread together under the doughy love of Chicago pizza!

Jimmy starts outpatient therapy next week and the plan is that should continue until September. At this point, like I've said before, I would wonder. He's made such amazing strides, it may be reduced, but we'll talk about that when that moment comes up.

He got to spend his first night home, in my parents home, laying in a comfortable bed, windows open, the breeze of the evening softly dancing around his room, the hum of the fan near bedside acting as background music to the rumbling of the thunderclouds that rolled through the nights sky sometime Wednesday night.
A wonderful feeling.

No annoying sounds. No beeping. No nurses clip clopping past his doorway to check in on him. No voices directed to other patients on his floor.


Just a comfortable big bed. A breeze. Some thunderclouds and rain to balance the humming of the fan and the mixture of the soft wind.


He still gets headaches, and too much stimulation is not good for him. He still can't eat too many crunchy things as it hurts his jaw (and orbital bones-remember he broke all of those in the accident)

He can walk on his own. He can walk into the bathroom without a nurse, or someone hovering over him. He doesn't need to have help with showering. He can do it all on his own. He doesn't need nursing care, doesn't need hovering care, just loving supervision. His filter for saying what he thinks is still amplified, so he's far more direct and will say whatever he thinks without thinking first, but that's all part of the brain injury. He smiles. He hugs. He laughes. He gets mad. He's brutally honest and he is home. He is walking without assistance. He still has the eye patch on, and without it will get horrible double vision, but if you could see him walking around, you wouldn't have know that he was involved in a car accident with a semi that was going (speed limit??) about 40+ mph and couldn't stop in time therefore slamming into Jimmy's drivers side door of the company (FORD!!) truck that he was in. (My parents plumbing company). You would look at me and say, "no way!" 3 weeks and a few days after that day he was discovered in the passenger side of the truck that was laying on it's side, his body most likely posturing, his one pupil dilated, and blood and broken glass and other awful things surrounding him. Except that he also had G-d with him. Time was working in his favor and he had all the right people that came to his aid that moment. Awful but Wonderful.

Matter of fact when I stopped by my parents home last night, he had just had a nice stroll along the sidewalks of my parents street. He was standing outside, the smell of something familiar hidden by my parents vehicles had crept its way towards my nose, and as I got closer, it was then that I realized they were standing side by side, my dad at the Weber grill. The smell of one of Jim's favorite dishes, my dad's famous BBQ grilled chicken, wafted up between their conversation, and, well, it was another magical moment that I tucked up inside my own 3lb brain. To see my brother standing alongside my dad, standing alongside my dad, while my dad was in grill-master mode, was something I wish I had a camera for.

To capture the essence of that moment, the perfect calm that image offered.

Father and Son.
A beautiful evening with 80 degree temperatures.
A moment that back on May 26th, I feared I'd never witness again.
Another moment.
Thank you!