Just a quick note about Natasha Richardson, who died at 45 from a head injury she suffered after a fall at Quebec's Mont Tremblant, which is a favorite ski area for members of my family.
She was a lovely woman and a fine actress, but it's the way she died that feels personal to me.
Eleven years ago this May I had the first seizure of my life. I've not kept a strict count, but for the first three and a half years, I had them about every three months. I couldn't drive, and getting the ten miles to work on public transportation would take me at least an hour and a half, one way. The medicine I was on made me feel as if a huge swath of my mind was being shared by too many users. Many of the seizures caused me to fall and injure myself, including blows to the head and E.R. stitches. I also discovered that municipal buses in San Francisco have pretty good breaks if you happen to be face-down in a ditch in front of one.
I bring this up because I have a scar on my brain which caused this mess. I don't know how it happened--the doctors don't, either--and they told me that it could have been the result of a head injury which had occurred at any point in my life. I saw the scar on an x-ray once; it looked like a worm.
I lived like a roustabout for a good many years, and caution wasn't in my tool belt. I learned the hard way that a knock on the head can be serious business. I feel badly for Natasha Richardson's family, especially for her husband and their two young sons, who have now lost a parent far too young.
I know something about that, too.
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