I Wished I Died

In the earliest days, months, and years after my traumatic brain injury, I wrote things in my journal I can barely read now without tears.

I wished — more than once — that I had simply died in that moment of impact instead of surviving with a brain that would never be the same.

I imagined a funeral where the people I loved showed up. Family and friends filling the room, surrounding my wife and children with support, meals, and love. A clear ending. A story with closure. My wife would be a widow — heartbreaking, but honorable. My kids would be fatherless, but the world we had would rally around them. If I had died - I would have gone out loved, instead of almost alone, I thought.

Instead, I lived.

And what we got was something much more painful: ambiguous grief. The slow, confusing loss of the husband and father they knew. Just a long, exhausting season of watching someone you love disappear while still sitting at the dinner table. A man who looked the same but thought differently, reacted differently, and struggled with things that used to come easily. No funeral. No closure. With no support from people we never would have imagined could live with no presence.

Those early journal entries were written in deep pain, confusion, and grief — not just for myself, but for what my survival was costing the people I loved most. If I had died - at least others would understand the reality that my wife was now alone, too. With a brain injury, few have understood.

What I’ve Learned Since

Time, healing, and honest reflection have changed my perspective.

I’m deeply grateful I didn’t die.

I’m grateful that my funeral — whenever that day eventually comes — won’t be filled with superficial relationships and people who never actually loved us. The injury revealed who was really there for us and who was only there for the version of me that was convenient, high-functioning, and easy to be around. Many of those people left early. And while it hurt tremendously at the time, and still does, I now see it as a painful but necessary pruning.

The circle is smaller now. Much smaller. But it is real. The people who remain love us — the messy, changed, still-healing version of our family. There is more meaning in the fewer, deeper relationships than in a large crowd of shallow ones.

I’m grateful for the weeding out. We never wanted to cut anyone out of our lives — we wanted everyone in. But some people chose to leave. They decided they didn’t want to stay in our world or let us into theirs, and they removed themselves. In the end, they did the pruning for us.

I’m grateful that my wife and kids get to have a husband and father who is still here — even if I’m a different man than before. I get to keep learning how to love them in this new reality. I get to watch my children grow. I get to fight for our future instead of leaving them with only memories.

And I’m grateful for the possibility of starting over.

Leaving behind the life we built — the house, the community, the plans — feels heavy and sad some days as we get closer to moving on. We invested years into creating something stable. But I’m learning that when what you built is no longer sustainable with a disability, holding on out of fear or nostalgia can become its own kind of prison. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is let go and build something new that fits who you are now.

I’m still alive. That single fact opens doors I once thought were closed forever earlier in my recovery.

A Different Kind of Legacy

I no longer wish I had died that day.

I still grieve the man I was. I still grieve the ease and capacity I lost. I still wish my wife and children didn’t have to carry the weight of ambiguous loss. I still have bad moments where the weight of everything can be heavy. But I am profoundly thankful to still be here — breathing, growing, loving, and moving forward with the people who chose to stay.

Our circle is smaller. Our path may look different. But it is ours. And because I survived, we still get to write the next chapters together with those that have still chosen us.

If you’re in the early, dark days of brain injury recovery and you’ve had similar thoughts, please know you’re not alone — and those feelings don’t have to define your future. Survival is messy. It’s painful. But it also holds possibilities that death never could.

I’m glad I’m still here. I hope, in time, you’ll be glad you are too. You are not alone.