conversations with kids

There are words I never thought I'd have to find that I use often. There are words I say to my children, metaphors I make up as I go along, to explain to a six year old and a nine year old what it's like to have a brain injury.

It's nice in some ways that they will grow up with this knowledge. It's nice that they have some patience for their father and some understanding that he wasn't always this way. It's sad though that our eldest, who was just shy of two when Karl came back from his second tour of Iraq, and our daughter, who was born just over ten months after Karl came home, will never know Karl as he was before.

"He used to be quick," I told my eldest today, while they and I were out having some just-the-two-of-us-time, "he used to remember things better than most people... like you."

"I can not imagine that," they responded, with an incredulous laugh in their voice.

"Well, it's like his brain is a car - it still gets from one place to another.... it just doesn't go as fast. His brain used to go really fast. That's called processing speed. That's one of the things they tested. His memory is bad too, you know that though."

"Yeah, he can't remember anything. I can't imagine not being able to remember where I'm going if I'm walking somewhere."

"Right!" I said, "Imagine your brain works fast and you remember things as well as you do now, because you remember things better than some people, right?"

This lead off on a tangent about things they remembered from when they were 3, but we circled back around when I told them to imagine being 24 and suddenly not being able to remember simple things anymore.

"I can not imagine that," they said for the second time.

We talked about how brains are weird and how things people remember are weird. They remember telling me about a dream they had when they were barely three. They remember the first time we saw our first house, when they were three and a half. They remember a watering can we had when they turned six.

"Daddy remembers things from when he was a kid still," I tell them, "he just can't make new memories very easily."

Apparently they know he remembers his childhood because he recently told them about breaking his nose when he was a kid and they were grossed out. They also know more about blast wave induced TBIs than most adults they encounter. They also think the science of learning how brains are impacted by blasts or by force ("like football," they say and I know they listen to me rant) is fascinating.

They also know, thanks to our conversation today, what IED means.

"People can make bombs at home with materials they buy at the store, and that's the kind Daddy ran over."

"I wouldn't make a bomb," they say.

Me neither, I think, but then I think about war and safety and come up with a few scenarios where I actually would place IEDs around my house to protect my family. I wouldn't have thought of any of this before Karl. I would have seen black and white and thought bombs were bad. Sometimes now, because of Karl, I think about how scared or angry someone must have been to put a bomb in the street, and I thank my lucky stars that I have never been in a time or place so terrifying.