San Onofre, CA. New papa. June 2010
One of the many upsides to my pops marrying my stepmom nearly 45 years ago was the fact that we'd also be getting a few more cool cousins—including this crazy guy. Over the years we didn't see each other much. But when we did I always felt a solid connection with Cousin Jason and was always eager to hear what he had to say. As anyone who knows him will attest, Jason is a prodigious talker. Which is why I'm eager to work with him on a book project he's been talking about doing for years. I'm also starting a small press—Bobtimystic Publishing, website coming this week—and I'm hoping we can help Cousin Jason channel all his chattiness and tap into that fertile brain of his to create a memoir about what he went through after nearly dying 20+ years ago. Here's a page 1 paragraph he came up with recently:
"Once I became conscious enough to ponder why I was in the hospital, I was told that on November 17, 1992 I was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. I sat dazed and wondered what would become of me, now that I was 'damaged goods.' I had no memory of anything happening to me and I was blessed with virtually no pain—luckily, that part of the journey I didn't remember. I'd been comatose for over two weeks, on life support with a device inserted into my head to gauge brain pressure—to no avail because I still had a minor stroke. I even needed assistance getting to the bathroom. Talk about humbling. Before that, only the hospital staff fully knew what my last several weeks had entailed."
Come on, you want to hear more of his story, right? How do you come all the way back from a life-threatening brain injury to not only work with special needs kids and have a kid of your own one day, but also show up to your Cousin Bob's wedding 2 decades later, happy and healthy enough to pull off this? Cousin Jason's going to tell us all about about it, right Jason? Stay tuned.