The house was constantly buzzing with people. My family, Josh’s family, Josh’s extended family, and even people who had divorced out of Josh’s family along with high school friends, college friends, and members of the community were there. It’s funny what humans do when they don’t know what to do. Some people brought food; some people sat down and watched TV; some people started cutting the grass—all they knew to do was to gather. We outlawed crying almost immediately. Once we told everyone that Josh was alive, just as tactless as he had always been, we told everyone that no one was going to cry over missing limbs. It was only June 1.
Fight, flight, and freeze all got their turn on day two of being back in Alabama. My life consisted of constant phone calls and note taking. When the phone rang from the 800 number that had been updating me about Josh, I would have fought my own grandmother to get in a private room so I could hear. Emerging from that room with the latest developments gave me the overwhelming desire to run. I just wanted to run away from the house, and I didn’t really care if anyone saw me. I just could not spend any energy on repeating information and answering questions. So, I froze. I literally pretended I couldn’t hear people, because my brain was processing the new information at two miles an hour. I wasn’t exactly sad or somber, just awkwardly stoic and focused on figuring out whatever was in arm’s reach. When the voices were too much and we couldn’t expedite getting me a passport and more cars started piling onto the street, I retreated to the porch, where I sat in the swing and wrote in my journal: Things I know: God has shown up every time. It is not time to break down. It is not time to lose hope. It is time to lean on resources. It is time to believe in the plan!
The crowd started to die down once we announced that Cathi would be boarding a flight to Germany that night. Early that afternoon, we dropped her off at the Atlanta airport for her transatlantic flight. Cathi flew all night and touched down in Germany on June 3. She immediately headed to Josh’s hospital room, already preparing herself for nurse mode. When she got there, Josh was a little more than out-of-sorts. He was panicking, crying, and complaining owing to all the medication. Even as a grown man, Josh needs the pediatric dosage of any kind of pain medication. Cathi recalled flashbacks of the time he had his tonsils out in second grade, and he was crying because he thought the doctor was trying to kill him. In effort to make him feel better, she told Josh they could Skype with me. I could see Josh moaning and moving around in the bed. He complained that it was too hot, the lights were too bright, he was thirsty, he was itchy, all while I am gently trying to look into his eyes for the first time since he became an amputee. Finally, Cathi said, “Josh! Look in the phone! It’s Paige!”
Josh notices the phone that has been five inches away from his face and says in a gravelly voice, “Paige?”
“Hey, honey!! How are you?” I said with a big smile and tears. Instead of answering the question, Josh flung his big splinted arm over his face and said, “I don’t want her to see me like this” and punches his mother right in the forehead. It was obvious that Cathi was in for a long night. Josh was completely unhinged from all the drugs. His hot flashes, itching, and sensitivity to light and sound pulled him into a tornado of frustration and paranoia. Some parts of him were numb. The parts that weren’t still feeling the inconceivable pain from the improvised explosive device (IED) that detonated beneath his feet just three days before. Despite the agony, Josh revealed his most surface-level concern: He didn’t want me to think his injury was proof he had failed as a soldier. He retreated the only way he could—by flinging a nerve-blocked casted arm over his dirty, scratched-up face and subsequently clubbing his own mom in the head. I thanked her for the effort but told her video chatting would not be necessary while she was with him.
An hour later, Cathi called me and told me that Josh was not going to make the flight manifest for the plane heading to the States the next morning unless he could clear his lungs of the debris he inhaled from the blast. If he couldn’t make the flight the next day, he could stay in Germany for another two days or up to another week. “Clear the debris? What does that mean?” I asked. Cathi explained that his lungs were full of dirt from the bomb literally going off underneath him. His lung capacity was terrible, and if he couldn’t take deeper breaths than he was taking now, the altitude of a flight could easily suffocate him.
