This day was a day like no other.  I was alone in my hospital room and in came the Occupational Therapist.  I did not expect her.  Nor did I expect what I was about to discover.  She emptied out her toy bag and revealed several colored blocks.  No big deal, I thought, just blocks representing primary colors.

Then she asked me to pick up a block, place it in the correct slot, and name the color. I picked a block of a color I have known since I was a toddler. It’s green, I thought.  But no matter how hard I tried I could not say it. How does one lose capabilities so quickly? And what happened to me medically to affect my cognition and my speech so profoundly?

That was a day I’ll not forget. I couldn’t identify green, the color I so loved. The color of trees and forests was lost to me that day. And it took diligent work to recover my ability to recognize and identify color.  So I am reminded how difficult it was for me to say “green” on that day. And I am also reminded not to take the special hue of leaves for granted. I will always love a path through a forest and all the lush green that covers me.