I woke up in a room full of people I didn’t recognize. They were all hovering over me and looked worried. I was in a white room, there was a curtain surrounding the small bed I lay on and all the people around me. Why am I here? I was so confused, but before I could collect my thoughts I was bombarded by the people noticing me woken up. A young boy spoke first.
“Bethany?” he said tentatively. A middle-aged looking woman came up on the other side of the bed and spoke to me.
“Bethany, honey? How are you feeling?”
I hesitated, “Who are all of you? Where am I?” I was scared at this point. I had no idea what was going on. The middle-aged woman started to tear up, so did the middle-aged man standing next to her. The young boy just looked at them, and he just sat down. He looked extremely confused, he was probably about as confused as me. He looked no older than four, I doubt he knew any more than I did. A younger man walked in the room, the middle-aged couple immediately ran over to him.
“Why doesn’t she know who we are? Why doesn’t she know anything?” They asked franticly. The man, who I assumed was a doctor, remained composed and told them to calm down and follow him into the hall. I just stayed in the position I woke up in, hoping this was all a bad dream. Not knowing who anyone was or what was going on and not being able to remember anything is pretty scary.
*
Bethany is a very smart girl, athletic too. She is one of those all around type of kids. I am very proud to be her mother. She never caused too much trouble and had many friends. I never expected anything bad to happen to her, but I was wrong. I was at work one day and I got a call. It was a number I didn’t recognize but I picked up. The voice sounded panicked. I could barely understand what the person on the other end was saying. I heard the most important part. My phone dropped to the ground and I ran. I ran down to my car and sped off to the hospital. I prayed and prayed that Bethany would be alright. I finally saw the hospital. I parked in the emergency spot and raced to the entrance. An ambulance pulled up as soon as I got there, and there was Bethany being rushed out of it on a stretcher. I ran up to her, her eyes were closed and she looked too still.
“Is she going to be okay?!” I asked frantically. No one answered. I started to panic. Her stretcher was moving so fast down the halls of the hospital I was having trouble keeping up. Then a nurse stopped me in my tracks.
“Ma’am you’re going to have to wait here.”
“No! I need to go with her! That’s my daugh-”
“Ma’am. Ma’am! You need to stay here.”
I looked at her. Bethany had disappeared into a room and I was stranded in the waiting room just praying she would be okay. There was no way I was going to get into that room. I would just have to wait. I am assuming my husband had been notified and was on his way, I hoped he was. I needed someone here with me while I waited for the news.
*
I went home from the hospital on a Thursday. I still knew nothing. Everyone tried to get me to remember my life prior to the accident but none of it sounded familiar to me. All I knew so far was my name was Bethany, I am in eighth grade, and I got into a terrible accident that supposedly caused me to lose all of my memory. The doctor told the people who I guess were my parents that they should not expect my memory to come back all in one, it may not even come back at all. I rode in the back seat of a Honda Odessy and looked out the window. I didn’t recognize anything I was driving by. Then we pulled up to medium sized home. I assumed this was my home. I started to get out of the car when the woman who I was told was my mother spoke.
“Hold on, Bethany let me help you.” she said firmly. She ran around to my side of the car and grabbed my arm to help me out of the car. I was glad she did because without her support I would have certainly fallen right over. She walked me into the house and I stood in the front hallway looking around for a moment. There was a glass door to my left that was to an office, and to my right there were a flight of stairs. My mother brought me up the flight of stairs and into a room I assumed was my own. The walls were a bright blue, the bed had a green bedspread and a canopy with sheer white curtains hanging from it. I walked over to the mirror that was sitting in the corner and took a good look at myself; blue eyes, brown hair, not too short, not too tall, thin, but not too skinny. I had broad shoulders for a girl, and I had muscular legs, I probably played a sport that involved a great deal of running. I look at the pictures that were scattered all over the place. There were picture of people who were probably my friends and me, pictures of the people who were at the hospital with me, my family I guess. There were also posters. One read Taylor Swift and had a picture of a thin girl with curly blond hair and had a guitar in her hands. I probably liked this girl if I had a poster of her in my room. There was a cork board above the desk that was sitting against a wall. Everything on it had information about someone named J.K. Rowling. There were newspaper clippings, printed out pictures of a woman who I guess was this person, J.K. Rowling, and a schedule to what looked like fan club meetings. The name Harry Potter was also plastered all over the board. I turned around and my mother was still standing in the doorway. I paused, it felt weird calling her Mom.
“Mom? Who is this J.K. Rowling person? Why is she all over this board?”
A small smile appeared on her face as she spoke, “J.K. Rowling is your idol. She is the author of all your favorite books, the Harry Potter books. I think you had memorized at least the first thirty pages of the first book. You loved everything she wrote, and you loved her story.”
I was confused, “What do you mean her story? She’s just a person.”
“Yes that’s true,” my mother started, “But she is a very amazing person. She went through a great deal of difficulty when she was a child and a young adult.”
Then after finishing, her face brightened and she ran out of the room. I had no idea what was going on but I was so tired. My head hurt more than anything and there were so many things that I still didn’t understand. I laid down on my bed and just dozed off.
*
I felt bad for speeding out of her room like that when she was still in such a confused state, but I had a brilliant idea. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?! I grabbed the home phone and dialed the number on the business card that the doctor had given me. It rang, and rang, and rang. Finally he picked up.
“Hello?”
“Yes hi this is Bethany’s mother!” I told him my thoughts exactly. I was speaking so fast, I would be surprised if he completely understood what I had just said.
He was silent for a moment. He told me that I could try it, but not to be disappointed if it didn’t work. I then got off the phone. I had to get all her Harry Potter things together, this had to work. It just had to. How could she not remember the thing she enjoyed more than anything. She was highly obsessed and never went a day without talking about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling. I snuck up to Bethany’s room and she was asleep already, I had to be very quiet. I pulled the cork board off her wall, took all her Harry Potter books from her shelves, and even took the box of souvenirs she got when I took her to the premier of part two of the seventh movie. I crept out of her room and brought them all downstairs. I dropped everything on the kitchen table and looked it all over. I found the biography of J.K. Rowling in the box. I flipped through the pages, I have probably read this book about as many times as Bethany. I flipped right to my favorite chapter.
Joanne’s Childhood Joanne’s childhood was not anyone’s idea of an ideal childhood. Joanne’s mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when Joanne was young and there was no cure at the time. There was nothing the family could do about it but wait. Joanne and her mother were close, so Joanne spent as much time as possible with her mother. Joanne’s mother was getting weaker and weaker because of the multiple sclerosis, but she still managed to keep everything in order at home. Joanne’s father became disengaged with the rest of the family, especially Joanne. They had very little contact and rarely spoke. Joanne always wanted his approval but never seemed to have it. She was frightened of him, but still wanted to impress him.
I could never explain why this part of the book was my favorite, it just interested me so much. This was Bethany’s favorite part of the book. We used to have this thing between us, some would call it a game, it was just something known between us but it was never mentioned. It was my book to start out with, but she wanted to read it after reading the first Harry Potter book. I gave it to her and she read it over and over, but never gave it back. At one point I wanted to read it again so I took it from her room and hid it in mine. A few weeks later it was no where to be found. I asked Bethany if she had seen it anywhere and a mischievous smile appeared on her face.
“I haven’t seen it,” she said slyly.
I knew something was up. One day after she went to school, I looked in her room and found it under her pillow. We kept going with this little game from then on, hiding in a certain spot and waiting for the other to take it. We both loved the book and read it so much we always noticed it was missing shortly after it was taken from its hiding spot.
I sat at the kitchen table sifting through the rest of Bethany’s J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter things. What else could be useful? The newspaper clippings were probably foreign to her so those were no good, a map I found in the box would mean nothing to her, then I found something else that could work. There was a small story that Bethany must have printed off the internet. It was about J.K. Rowling and her depression. Bethany always had found it fascinating that someone who turned out so successful came from that state of depression. I continued looking through all Bethany’s things and waited for her to wake up, I was so anxious to try this, and I just knew it would work.
*
I woke up in my room, and I still had no idea what was going on. I had a painful headache and my stomach churned, it was the worst feeling. I stayed in bed and just stared up at the ceiling. When would my memory come back? I had been at this house for less than a day and I was already sick of being confused all the time. I laid there in bed for a little longer and then I finally decided it was time to get up. I slowly got up and walked toward the doorway. I examined everything I was walking by to see if it triggered any of my memory. Nothing. Not one thing was familiar to my. I went down the staircase and into the kitchen where my mother was sitting with a jumble of things sitting in front of her. There were books, the cork board from my room, and a ton of papers.
“What is all of this?” I asked.
“Well, I had an idea. You loved all this stuff before, so maybe it will help you remember before your accident. All these things are about J.K. Rowling and her books about Harry Potter. You were literally obsessed.” She said with a hint of excitement in her voice.
I mean I guess it was worth a try, “Okay,” I said, “Let’s try it!”
She gave me a book. She told me to flip to page 237 and read the first paragraph. I did as I was told. The paragraph was interesting, this woman sounded like she had an awful early life, but I didn’t recall hearing or seeing any of it before. I told my mother and she looked disappointed. If she was trying to hide it, she wasn’t doing a very good job. She told me we would keep trying, something had to work. Something had to get me remember my life. She gave me a printout. The title was “J.K. Rowling Speaks Out About Her Depression”. The title drew me in and I started reading. In the passage they called her Joanne. Joanne’s mother died of multiple sclerosis and her father became disengaged. Joanne had a difficult time coping with the loss of her mother and her father was no help to her. She stopped speaking to her father. Then when her first marriage ended, she went back to Britain to try to rebuild her life. She was extremely poor and was clinically depressed. There were times when she had suicidal thoughts and she woke up every morning expecting to find her baby daughter dead. It was a horrible time for her, but it all inspired her to write her highly successful Harry Potter books.
It was a very interesting article, but it was all still foreign to me, like I had never heard of any of it before. I obviously had if my mom was saying that I had been obsessed with it, but none of it rang a bell. My mom looked at me hopefully, and I felt like I was letting her down by saying that I still couldn’t remember anything. It wasn’t my fault though, I couldn’t make myself remember everything. I looked at her again.
“Still nothing...” I said.
I watched her face as it started to droop, her eyes full of sadness. My mom and I both knew that at this point, there was a great chance that I would never remember anything about myself. I would have to relearn everything, my friends would have to fill me in on everything that was going on in the school world, and my family would have to tell me everything about my home world. It would sure be difficult, but we would all have to get through it.
***
It didn’t work. She will never remember anything about her life. I didn’t know what else to try. I had given up. It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t remember anything, it wasn’t her fault she got into the unfortunate accident. None of it was her fault. I watched her as she looked down at the table. It was clear that she wanted to remember everything too. I could not imagine what it could have been like to not be able to know a thing about your own life. All the memories and the good times, all just gone. I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn’t notice Bethany had gotten up and was walking around the kitchen. There were tickets to the second part of the seventh Harry Potter movie sitting on the counter. She wanted to go see it again so I said I would take her again. We were supposed to go yesterday but that was obviously not possible so the tickets just sat on the counter. Bethany examined them and then looked at me.
“My birthday is November 20,” she said.
“Yes, honey that is your birthday,” I responded. Then I did a double take, she remembers her birthday! I immediately started questioning her.
“What is your middle name? How many siblings do you have? When did J.K. Rowling’s mother die?” I asked all in almost one sentence.
She answered every single question correctly.
“Mom, I remember everything! The J.K. Rowling thing worked!”
She ran over to me and hugged me tight. She could remember everything now. I cannot believe my idea worked. I thought I would have to go on forever without her remembering the first 14 years of her life, but I don’t, and I could not stop smiling. My daughter, Bethany, now knew exactly who she was.
“Bethany?” he said tentatively. A middle-aged looking woman came up on the other side of the bed and spoke to me.
“Bethany, honey? How are you feeling?”
I hesitated, “Who are all of you? Where am I?” I was scared at this point. I had no idea what was going on. The middle-aged woman started to tear up, so did the middle-aged man standing next to her. The young boy just looked at them, and he just sat down. He looked extremely confused, he was probably about as confused as me. He looked no older than four, I doubt he knew any more than I did. A younger man walked in the room, the middle-aged couple immediately ran over to him.
“Why doesn’t she know who we are? Why doesn’t she know anything?” They asked franticly. The man, who I assumed was a doctor, remained composed and told them to calm down and follow him into the hall. I just stayed in the position I woke up in, hoping this was all a bad dream. Not knowing who anyone was or what was going on and not being able to remember anything is pretty scary.
*
Bethany is a very smart girl, athletic too. She is one of those all around type of kids. I am very proud to be her mother. She never caused too much trouble and had many friends. I never expected anything bad to happen to her, but I was wrong. I was at work one day and I got a call. It was a number I didn’t recognize but I picked up. The voice sounded panicked. I could barely understand what the person on the other end was saying. I heard the most important part. My phone dropped to the ground and I ran. I ran down to my car and sped off to the hospital. I prayed and prayed that Bethany would be alright. I finally saw the hospital. I parked in the emergency spot and raced to the entrance. An ambulance pulled up as soon as I got there, and there was Bethany being rushed out of it on a stretcher. I ran up to her, her eyes were closed and she looked too still.
“Is she going to be okay?!” I asked frantically. No one answered. I started to panic. Her stretcher was moving so fast down the halls of the hospital I was having trouble keeping up. Then a nurse stopped me in my tracks.
“Ma’am you’re going to have to wait here.”
“No! I need to go with her! That’s my daugh-”
“Ma’am. Ma’am! You need to stay here.”
I looked at her. Bethany had disappeared into a room and I was stranded in the waiting room just praying she would be okay. There was no way I was going to get into that room. I would just have to wait. I am assuming my husband had been notified and was on his way, I hoped he was. I needed someone here with me while I waited for the news.
*
I went home from the hospital on a Thursday. I still knew nothing. Everyone tried to get me to remember my life prior to the accident but none of it sounded familiar to me. All I knew so far was my name was Bethany, I am in eighth grade, and I got into a terrible accident that supposedly caused me to lose all of my memory. The doctor told the people who I guess were my parents that they should not expect my memory to come back all in one, it may not even come back at all. I rode in the back seat of a Honda Odessy and looked out the window. I didn’t recognize anything I was driving by. Then we pulled up to medium sized home. I assumed this was my home. I started to get out of the car when the woman who I was told was my mother spoke.
“Hold on, Bethany let me help you.” she said firmly. She ran around to my side of the car and grabbed my arm to help me out of the car. I was glad she did because without her support I would have certainly fallen right over. She walked me into the house and I stood in the front hallway looking around for a moment. There was a glass door to my left that was to an office, and to my right there were a flight of stairs. My mother brought me up the flight of stairs and into a room I assumed was my own. The walls were a bright blue, the bed had a green bedspread and a canopy with sheer white curtains hanging from it. I walked over to the mirror that was sitting in the corner and took a good look at myself; blue eyes, brown hair, not too short, not too tall, thin, but not too skinny. I had broad shoulders for a girl, and I had muscular legs, I probably played a sport that involved a great deal of running. I look at the pictures that were scattered all over the place. There were picture of people who were probably my friends and me, pictures of the people who were at the hospital with me, my family I guess. There were also posters. One read Taylor Swift and had a picture of a thin girl with curly blond hair and had a guitar in her hands. I probably liked this girl if I had a poster of her in my room. There was a cork board above the desk that was sitting against a wall. Everything on it had information about someone named J.K. Rowling. There were newspaper clippings, printed out pictures of a woman who I guess was this person, J.K. Rowling, and a schedule to what looked like fan club meetings. The name Harry Potter was also plastered all over the board. I turned around and my mother was still standing in the doorway. I paused, it felt weird calling her Mom.
“Mom? Who is this J.K. Rowling person? Why is she all over this board?”
A small smile appeared on her face as she spoke, “J.K. Rowling is your idol. She is the author of all your favorite books, the Harry Potter books. I think you had memorized at least the first thirty pages of the first book. You loved everything she wrote, and you loved her story.”
I was confused, “What do you mean her story? She’s just a person.”
“Yes that’s true,” my mother started, “But she is a very amazing person. She went through a great deal of difficulty when she was a child and a young adult.”
Then after finishing, her face brightened and she ran out of the room. I had no idea what was going on but I was so tired. My head hurt more than anything and there were so many things that I still didn’t understand. I laid down on my bed and just dozed off.
*
I felt bad for speeding out of her room like that when she was still in such a confused state, but I had a brilliant idea. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?! I grabbed the home phone and dialed the number on the business card that the doctor had given me. It rang, and rang, and rang. Finally he picked up.
“Hello?”
“Yes hi this is Bethany’s mother!” I told him my thoughts exactly. I was speaking so fast, I would be surprised if he completely understood what I had just said.
He was silent for a moment. He told me that I could try it, but not to be disappointed if it didn’t work. I then got off the phone. I had to get all her Harry Potter things together, this had to work. It just had to. How could she not remember the thing she enjoyed more than anything. She was highly obsessed and never went a day without talking about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling. I snuck up to Bethany’s room and she was asleep already, I had to be very quiet. I pulled the cork board off her wall, took all her Harry Potter books from her shelves, and even took the box of souvenirs she got when I took her to the premier of part two of the seventh movie. I crept out of her room and brought them all downstairs. I dropped everything on the kitchen table and looked it all over. I found the biography of J.K. Rowling in the box. I flipped through the pages, I have probably read this book about as many times as Bethany. I flipped right to my favorite chapter.
Joanne’s Childhood
Joanne’s childhood was not anyone’s idea of an ideal childhood. Joanne’s mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when Joanne was young and there was no cure at the time. There was nothing the family could do about it but wait. Joanne and her mother were close, so Joanne spent as much time as possible with her mother. Joanne’s mother was getting weaker and weaker because of the multiple sclerosis, but she still managed to keep everything in order at home. Joanne’s father became disengaged with the rest of the family, especially Joanne. They had very little contact and rarely spoke. Joanne always wanted his approval but never seemed to have it. She was frightened of him, but still wanted to impress him.
I could never explain why this part of the book was my favorite, it just interested me so much. This was Bethany’s favorite part of the book. We used to have this thing between us, some would call it a game, it was just something known between us but it was never mentioned. It was my book to start out with, but she wanted to read it after reading the first Harry Potter book. I gave it to her and she read it over and over, but never gave it back. At one point I wanted to read it again so I took it from her room and hid it in mine. A few weeks later it was no where to be found. I asked Bethany if she had seen it anywhere and a mischievous smile appeared on her face.
“I haven’t seen it,” she said slyly.
I knew something was up. One day after she went to school, I looked in her room and found it under her pillow. We kept going with this little game from then on, hiding in a certain spot and waiting for the other to take it. We both loved the book and read it so much we always noticed it was missing shortly after it was taken from its hiding spot.
I sat at the kitchen table sifting through the rest of Bethany’s J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter things. What else could be useful? The newspaper clippings were probably foreign to her so those were no good, a map I found in the box would mean nothing to her, then I found something else that could work. There was a small story that Bethany must have printed off the internet. It was about J.K. Rowling and her depression. Bethany always had found it fascinating that someone who turned out so successful came from that state of depression. I continued looking through all Bethany’s things and waited for her to wake up, I was so anxious to try this, and I just knew it would work.
*
I woke up in my room, and I still had no idea what was going on. I had a painful headache and my stomach churned, it was the worst feeling. I stayed in bed and just stared up at the ceiling. When would my memory come back? I had been at this house for less than a day and I was already sick of being confused all the time. I laid there in bed for a little longer and then I finally decided it was time to get up. I slowly got up and walked toward the doorway. I examined everything I was walking by to see if it triggered any of my memory. Nothing. Not one thing was familiar to my. I went down the staircase and into the kitchen where my mother was sitting with a jumble of things sitting in front of her. There were books, the cork board from my room, and a ton of papers.
“What is all of this?” I asked.
“Well, I had an idea. You loved all this stuff before, so maybe it will help you remember before your accident. All these things are about J.K. Rowling and her books about Harry Potter. You were literally obsessed.” She said with a hint of excitement in her voice.
I mean I guess it was worth a try, “Okay,” I said, “Let’s try it!”
She gave me a book. She told me to flip to page 237 and read the first paragraph. I did as I was told. The paragraph was interesting, this woman sounded like she had an awful early life, but I didn’t recall hearing or seeing any of it before. I told my mother and she looked disappointed. If she was trying to hide it, she wasn’t doing a very good job. She told me we would keep trying, something had to work. Something had to get me remember my life. She gave me a printout. The title was “J.K. Rowling Speaks Out About Her Depression”. The title drew me in and I started reading.
In the passage they called her Joanne. Joanne’s mother died of multiple sclerosis and her father became disengaged. Joanne had a difficult time coping with the loss of her mother and her father was no help to her. She stopped speaking to her father. Then when her first marriage ended, she went back to Britain to try to rebuild her life. She was extremely poor and was clinically depressed. There were times when she had suicidal thoughts and she woke up every morning expecting to find her baby daughter dead. It was a horrible time for her, but it all inspired her to write her highly successful Harry Potter books.
It was a very interesting article, but it was all still foreign to me, like I had never heard of any of it before. I obviously had if my mom was saying that I had been obsessed with it, but none of it rang a bell. My mom looked at me hopefully, and I felt like I was letting her down by saying that I still couldn’t remember anything. It wasn’t my fault though, I couldn’t make myself remember everything. I looked at her again.
“Still nothing...” I said.
I watched her face as it started to droop, her eyes full of sadness. My mom and I both knew that at this point, there was a great chance that I would never remember anything about myself. I would have to relearn everything, my friends would have to fill me in on everything that was going on in the school world, and my family would have to tell me everything about my home world. It would sure be difficult, but we would all have to get through it.
***
It didn’t work. She will never remember anything about her life. I didn’t know what else to try. I had given up. It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t remember anything, it wasn’t her fault she got into the unfortunate accident. None of it was her fault. I watched her as she looked down at the table. It was clear that she wanted to remember everything too. I could not imagine what it could have been like to not be able to know a thing about your own life. All the memories and the good times, all just gone. I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn’t notice Bethany had gotten up and was walking around the kitchen. There were tickets to the second part of the seventh Harry Potter movie sitting on the counter. She wanted to go see it again so I said I would take her again. We were supposed to go yesterday but that was obviously not possible so the tickets just sat on the counter. Bethany examined them and then looked at me.
“My birthday is November 20,” she said.
“Yes, honey that is your birthday,” I responded. Then I did a double take, she remembers her birthday! I immediately started questioning her.
“What is your middle name? How many siblings do you have? When did J.K. Rowling’s mother die?” I asked all in almost one sentence.
She answered every single question correctly.
“Mom, I remember everything! The J.K. Rowling thing worked!”
She ran over to me and hugged me tight. She could remember everything now. I cannot believe my idea worked. I thought I would have to go on forever without her remembering the first 14 years of her life, but I don’t, and I could not stop smiling. My daughter, Bethany, now knew exactly who she was.