I am not writing about any of that in this post. I was, however, inspired to write by a new Twitter friend, @beanloveblogger, when she tweeted me her own blog post about the similarities she found in reading the book, Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion, featuring zombies and her experiences with her own brain injury. I really appreciate her perspective. It very much reminded me of my almost identical experience comparing my brain injury experience with a book by Daniel Waters entitled Generation Dead. Oddly enough, also presenting zombies.
My Dad had found a copy of Generation Dead with a large display of books that were free for borrowing (or taking) at the Wascana Rehabilitation Centre. I was going to various therapies there, early in my recovery. At the same time, I had just received the prism for my eyeglasses to help with my diplopia, so I was seeing singularly and could read for a period without exhausting my healing brain.
Now, I do want to mention, that although I was 28 years old at the time, and Generation Dead was written for a much younger readership (amazon says it's for reading level grade 7 and up), I was quite childlike in my cognitive abilities.
My brain was horribly damaged mere months ago, give a lady a break.
As mentioned in previous posts, I love reading. Zombies were one of my favourite topics. This was well before The Walking Dead came to television.
See post: Zombie Love and Saving My Brain
Anyhoo. I was excited to read.
Generation Dead is a story about a phenomenon of teenagers coming back from the dead as "living impaired" or "differently biotic", and how the community handles the change. Specifically, this story focuses on three characters, all in high school. It was enthralling to me because a lot of the characteristics of the differently biotic were eerily similar to what I experienced learning to walk and talk again. They shuffled, and moved funny, they mumbled and their speech wasn't always clear. There were definite themes related to how we treat different groups of people (class, colour, ethnicities, sexualities, and abilities). But what I really took from the story (stories, really, I also read Kiss Of Life and Passing Strange) was that-and spoiler alert-the living impaired kids that were able to "recover" from their deadness were the kids that had love and support from friends and family. This is also very much true in how my recovery has played out. My family and friends were and are amazing throughout my life. They are part of the reason that I've recovered so well from the undead.
