In Which I Encounter Brain Damaged People And Am Conflicted

A few months ago at Edge of the West, one of the regulars posted something, and in the comment section someone asked, "What's your point?" My thought was - geeze, it's not like this is a PhD thesis, or a peer reviewed journal article. It's just a blog post. Sometimes you might want to present a collection of facts, write to gather your thoughts or come to grips with something, or just riff on an idea. And that ought to be OK. All of which is preamble to what will likely be a long, rambling, and ultimately pointless blog post.

Last Friday was a very strange day. It started with being awakened by a squawking duck. A mother duck and her 16 hatchlings have been waddling along, hither and thither, behind my yard for a few weeks. My yard is the only one in the immediate area that has a fence (chain link) and the ducklings have been able to get in and out under it. On this morning, Mamma Duck got in and was stuck. She ran back and forth, getting more frustrated and agitated. An upset duck can make one hell of a racket. I threw on some clothes and went outside to try to help her. I will freely admit, though, that I had no concept of what helping a frustrated duck was actually going to entail. Problem solved, though. By the time I got outside, she had found her own way out.

So, the Lovely Wife and I went out to breakfast. We took the morning newspaper along. Our waitress noticed the tragic lead story on the front page about five teenagers who were killed racing a train to a crossing. She made a comment in passing about "stupid teenagers." Something about her speech and mannerisms seemed not quite right. When she came around again to refill our coffee cups, she said she was in a similar accident, years ago, with two fatalities and two survivors. She suffered a closed head injury, was in a coma for seven weeks, and wasn't expected to live. She was pleasant, and did a good job - but clearly lost something in the accident that can never be replaced. We left feeling unsettled.

Later that day we went out to run an errand. Our subdivision opens out to a rather minor major street. A sort distance away it crosses a Major Major street. As we sat at the corner of minor and Major the LW noticed a man in a wheel chair on the edge of Major street. He seemed to be having trouble. I made a quick right turn, and stopped next to him. He said he was OK, and wanted to get to the gas station at the next corner, where Major intersects Major2.

I pulled into a parking lot, handed the wheel to the LW, and moved the wheel chair away from the street. I pushed it to the gas station through the adjoining parking lots. The young man in the chair asked me my name, and I gave him my first name. I asked him his name and he told me, Leroy. I also learned that he lived in my subdivision. All of this was difficult. I had a hard time understanding him. The gas station had a small convenience store, and Leroy wanted some chips and cookies. We also got him a bottle of water, since he has been struggling in the summer heat.

Leroy kept saying he was OK, and didn't need any help. I asked how he was going to get home. "Walk," he said, meaning, rolling in his wheel chair. The LW said we should call the police. But Leroy got very agitated. He did not want the police. So we gave him a ride home in our van. He didn't want a ride home, but acquiesced. Then, he wanted to be dropped off in the street, so he could make it home on his own. Leroy was concerned about getting in trouble with his mamma. Eventually we got him to point out the house he lived in. We pulled into the driveway, and a man came from the house. I helped Leroy out of the van and back into his wheel chair, and turned him over to the man. I told him Leroy was concerned about being in trouble. He told me Leroy had brain damage. This was pretty clear, though, from his physical and mental impairments, his lack of judgment, and the slightly distorted shape of his head.

We left, and finally ran our errand. The LW thought we didn't handle the situation properly. I'm sure we did the right thing, but not at all sure we did it the right way.

Nagging questions:
Should we have called the police. No doubt I will if it happens again.
Did we endanger ourselves? Or put ourselves at legal risk? These thoughts came much later.
How did Leroy get away from his caregivers?
Did they miss him?
Were they looking for him? (Apparently not.)
Did they even know he was gone?
What happened to him after we left?

So, here we are, at last, at the end of a story with no plot, no moral that I can discern, and, as promised, no point. I'm trying to figure out what I should think and feel, but have no satisfying answer.