I was the first person Meira worked with who had a brain injury. So, in a way, she was learning while I was learning things, too. We were both teaching and we were both learning, too. I like that.
Meira decided that if there were others I could share stories with about brain injuries, it would help me. So we started the Healing Bridge Group. Three other people and I started the group. Every time someone was willing to tell their story, I learned a lot. More people kept coming. Meira and I are still working together to help people with brain injuries.
While working with Meira, I was also learning other things. For one thing, I learned I could understand animals a lot better than I could before. I first knew that when I saw the boxer.
Near my house there is an alley with a big sign saying, “Beware. Beware. Beware.” The family who lives there has a big boxer dog. And the boxer would bark and bark. It annoyed the hell out of me that this boxer would bark at me all the time. One day I thought, “Wait a minute. Maybe if the boxer got to know me, he wouldn't bark at me so much.” So I slowly got to know him.
By two or three months later, I would just open that gate and go inside, and the boxer and I would lie on the ground, and I would give him a pat and scratch him. I do that all the time now with dogs. Dogs are really wild about me now, and I always carry dog treats in my pocket.
I think animals’ intelligence is much higher than we think. I learned that with Ripple, Meira's horse. I just went and sat down in the middle of Ripple's pasture, and Ripple came over and laid down there with me. And we just talked a little bit. Ripple didn't judge me. And I thought that since she accepted me, maybe I could accept myself, too. People sometimes don't want to look at me because I have one eye sewn shut, but the animals all like me.
I've learned to see a lot of things differently. Behind the Sacred Heart Hospital is a big Dumpster, and I always like to look in there. I take things out of it. I took out a thing they used for hauling around an oxygen tank. I put carpeting on the place where you rest your arms, and then I used it to haul my kids around. I put my kids in it and go for walks all over Eugene. Someone threw it away because they didn't know what it could be. But when I saw it, I knew.
Sometimes sad things happen, too. One day, I got the courage to go in a car and ride to the grocery store. One of my graduate students saw me and came over to the car. I had helped him move a big sculpture one time to the people he had sold it to. I mean, it was huge. We had to get a trailer. It was a big job.
But when he saw me in the car that day, he said to me, “Well, you've been turned into a retarded person.”
It disappointed me so much that that was his view of me. When we got to the grocery store, I went and found an aisle where there were no people whatsoever, sat on the floor, and cried.
I do sculpture a lot now. There's a kind of tree in Eugene that I can't think of the name of. Every time the city cuts one down, I get a piece of it and make a sculpture. They all look different. I call them “Maturity.” I have forty or fifty of those now. Every one of them is different. It's like people. No two people are alike. But we're all similar.
I do hammer sculptures now, too. The hammers all start out the same. Like people. But the hammers have all been used in different ways. Some of them are chipped here, others are chipped there. The handles are different, too. I had an exhibit. People's reactions were wonderful. Their reactions were really my payment for that show.
I try to help people, like Meira helped me, whenever I can. We started out with a support group to help each other. Now we have the Healing Bridge Advocacy and Teaching Panel Group. With this group, I go around and help other people learn about brain injuries. And I talk to the speech and language students at the university. I tell them not to be judgmental. Curiosity works better than judgment. If you're judgmental, you will miss the fact that errors are wonderful because we learn a lot from them. Errors teach as much as perfection.
And I belong to another group, too, for professional people with brain injuries. I like to help out at the nursing home, and wherever people need someone to see things in a different way.
One day, Meira, her therapy dog, and I went to visit Meira's friend, a case manager at a nursing home. I met a guy there named George. He had a brain injury and was incredibly grumpy sometimes. He didn't have anybody. I made some Play-Doh with him. We took some wheels, and George just moved them around on the Play-Doh and made different shapes. I liked that. And I found out that George played the piano. No one else knew it at that place. No one else tried to find out what George could do. They didn't really see him—but I did.
I also go to a group where people have had strokes. There's a man there who had a severe stroke. He could not speak at all. I drew pictures with him on the blackboard. I liked that. I work mainly in sculpture. But still, I like drawing, too. So we drew a lot. And now he can speak.
I wish I could do some of the things I could do before. But I like myself more now. I feel like I've learned a lot. I know about dealing with difficulties now. And I have a lot more to learn and to teach. Educating others about brain injury is so important. We are all different and we are all the same. Every person has a right to be accepted.
I used to be a teacher. People say I still am.
Help others with brain injury realize their potential. Learn how to turn a support group into an advocacy and teaching panel and much more. Contact: Brain Injury Training & Services, Inc., c/o Opening The Way, Inc., 16209 Del Malley, Dallas, Texas 75248.
CHAPTER6
Jonni Angel
JONNI MCKENZIE MCCUIN
AS FAR BACK AS I CAN REMEMBER, I can't ever recall being happy until I finally asked God to take control of my life. Before that, I just barely struggled along. As a child and young adult, my life just went from one crisis to the next. Then one day, I told God that I just didn't see any point in living any more. I told Him that if He wanted me to live, He was going to have to help me figure out how to do it.
And God was right there for me. All I'd had to do was ask.
The suffering in my life started when I was little.
One night when I was ten years old, my brothers and I were home alone (we lived with our mother) when one of my uncles came over. My father never came to see me, but my uncles came around a lot. They would come over to my house to drink with my mother.
This particular night, my mother was at work, and my brothers and I were playing with a cigarette she had left in the ashtray. I was just starting to smoke it when my uncle walked in and caught me.
“Well, you know you're going to get a whipping,” my uncle said. I started crying. I had seen my mama whip my brothers and I knew I didn't want that. My uncle said he wouldn't tell Mama if I went home with him.
When we got to his house, he pulled out something that looked like a cigarette, but he rolled it up differently. I didn't know it was marijuana. He told me to smoke it. When I tried it, I decided it was better than a cigarette.
And then he began to fondle me. I knew it was wrong for my uncle to touch me that way. But I was more afraid of getting a whipping than I was of having him touch me. So I let him do it.
At the time, I was skinny and gawky and everyone teased me. But I found one group of kids that would accept me—if I brought them weed from my uncle. So this was the crowd I started to hang with.
It was also around that time that one of my uncles gave me my first beer. I drank the whole thing straight down. It gave me an absolutely sensational feeling. I felt braver. I felt stronger. I felt like no one could harm me—or if they did, I wouldn't care. By the time I was thirteen, I could drink eight cans of beer in one sitting.
My younger brother was drinking a lot, too. One night, he got so drunk and sick, I had to put him in the tub and wash him off. I guess we were up pretty late that night,