“Margie, Brian’s been shot.” Those words from my husband began an agonizing period in my family’s life. Brian was 13 years old when he was shot through the neck in an unintentional shooting by a friend with an unsecured gun.
In what we consider a miracle, he survived, but he was in pediatric intensive care for weeks, and the following 18 months were a blur of physical and occupational therapy appointments. His return home after his long hospitalization was celebrated by family and friends, but the emotional and psychological trauma of this avoidable event has followed all of us for decades.
The scars that Brian bears are both visible and unseen, and our family of four was changed in ways we understand and those that we still grapple and struggle with.