This is the most frequent question I am asked when people hear the story.  Well,  he says he fell in love with me all over again.  I say he is “Scott forward” not many changes except for a little less intense at times and this whole public speaking idea and telling people our private lives stuff.  The way he holds me and kisses me is the same.  Is it instinct?  I don’t know but it feels the same.  He looks at me with the same caring and loving eyes.  I guess the female in me wants to think that his heart didn’t forget the love but the nurse in me knows that the brain is where the love is stored and maybe it is kept in a different part that was not damaged.   When we hold each other, I feel the same except for the loneliness that comes when I think of an embrace that he doesn’t remember.  It’s so strange to think that he is the same yet he doesn’t know me.  Many friends have said  “look at it this way he doesn’t remember the fights or bad moods you had”  and I say but it is the good times and the special moments that only we shared together are lost also.  I have a dear friend that lost her husband suddenly and that’s what she misses most are those things two people in love share and know about each other—I have Scott to create new memories with but we lost so much.

I guess as he doesn’t know who he is and he really doesn’t know me as well, that’s so hard to think about.  We have been together my whole adult life and our experiences that we shared have shaped me to what I am today but he only see’s today.  He doesn’t know Joan the naive college student from a small town.  He doesn’t know Joan who cried every day and night and wanted to die when she lost Taryn our first baby who was stillborn full term.  He doesn’t know Joan who was so confident in herself that she came fresh out of college and started in the emergency room as an RN.  He doesn’t know Joan who worried every moment of her pregnancy that Grant or Taylor would not make it.        

He doesn’t know Joan who was the best mom, so dedicated to her children, their school and activities.    He doesn’t know Joan who has loved and supported him with every financial and business challenge they have encountered.   He doesn’t know Joan who went back to the emergency room to work after eight years at home to provide insurance and income.  He doesn’t know Joan who dealt with so many of the kids challenges that he never knew about.  He doesn’t know Joan who went back to school after 20 years to get her master’s degree.  He doesn’t know Joan who cried and cried in disbelief and feelings of helplessness when their son dealt with addiction.  He doesn’t know Joan who celebrated every business victory right by his side.  I guess I will spend the rest of our lives teaching him who he fell in love all over again with.

So many people ask me if we had to relearn about each other or was it there in his subconscious.  I find it ironic that Scott has the mannerisms that used to drive me crazy—some of those could have gone with the memory loss!  You see he would make this sound by sucking in his mouth through his teeth that seems to let me know that he is annoyed or frustrated—usually by something that I am doing.  Also he still gets frustrated by traffic or having to turn around the car because he missed a turn or we need to go back for something.  The same goes for me as well, if I do something that use to annoy him prior to the head injury—it still does.  I pick at my cuticles—nervous habit, I guess, and this still drives him crazy.  So even if he doesn’t have his memory of me doing something the same thing drives him and me crazy.  That is why he seems “no different” to most people because he walks, talks and responds like Scott always did just don’t “say remember the time”……