“There but for the grace of God, go I” is a common expression when we learn about someone else’s misfortune. In those instances, we realize how vulnerable to the whims of fate we all are, no matter how invincible, how prosperous, or how full of life and promise we appear to be at any given moment. In Damaged, Janet Smuga tells, with great honesty and eloquence, the story of what happens when her family faces one such adverse turn of events.

In late 1988, Janet’s younger sister, Nancy, was driving home from a business meeting when she lost control of her car and had an accident that left her in a coma. At only thirty-two, Nancy had already achieved remarkable things: she was a talented designer educated in the best schools and owned a thriving business; she had a beautiful house; she was married to a handsome, successful man and had a three-year-old daughter with him. Everything seemed to go well for Nancy until the accident that shattered her life and that brought her family together—her sister, her brother, her father and, above all, her mother—to assume the arduous task of taking care of a person with irreversible brain damage. 

At the time of her ordeal, Nancy was pregnant and her condition was at the center of a well-publicized right-to-an-abortion dispute. However, this is not a book about the legal battle her family had to fight in her name, or about the abortion controversy in the USA.

At its core, this is a book about family. It is also about different approaches to dealing with trauma, the unforeseen, and the challenges and disappointments life throws at us.  

As part of her memoir, Janet Smuga tells us the story of her parents. She describes how they met in the years after WWII—he, a veteran of the war, and she, a big city girl— and how they started a family and raised their three children at a time when parenting was very different from how people conceive and practice it today. 

The author also recounts a traumatic event she experienced as a child and how she suffered in its aftermath, not so much as a result of the incident but of her parents’ reaction to it. Janet’s difficult experiences—overcoming her PTSD, moving so often during her early years, and the fact that she seemed to be her mother’s least favorite child—ultimately strengthened her and gave her a wisdom that would be crucial in addressing Nancy’s care, and in raising a happy, healthy family of her own. 

Although Damaged can be of particular interest to those who are caring for survivors of brain trauma, I believe that it also offers valuable insights for all of us, as we go through life. Like its author says, there are no happy endings here. However, through Janet’s account, we can learn some lessons about letting go, about acceptance and endurance, and about caring for someone else who completely depends on us, without neglecting our own needs and wants, and those of our other loved ones.