A young man. He keeps his eyes open to watch TV. His eyes seem to be listening intently when his wife talks about what their new baby is doing. His hand on occasional will squeeze a yes or a no. On good days, with the right wide-awake-drugs, he might have a few hours of seeming wide awake, and will work to vocalize. His baby gets lots of attention from the nurses on the floor.

His wife is amazing. She and the baby are there most of the day, every day. She brushes his teeth, checks his eye medicine, rotates his limbs, deals with bureacracy, fills his room with photos, worries over his tubes or his breathing or his alertness or his temperature or treatments, talks to him all the time, shaves, gives him a shower, and hugs; all the while she is feeding the baby, playing with the baby, interrupted by the occasional baby stomach virus, or a traffic ticket, or household problems etc. etc. Or by going through the box that arrived with his possessions in it, a card never opened, and time for her to think about 365 days.

No words, yet. No walking, yet. The uncertainty of the future -- for anything is still quite possible for him, as far as a recovery -- and the near-certainty or predictability of the present -- for all that is possible for the moment is to stay in the same room and keep trying to develop his ability to communicate, keep hoping for a better tomorrow -- has got to be too much for the mind to bear. Especially young, vivacious people with their lives ahead of them.

If our "leaders" in Washington were half the men, or half the women, of the ordinary, extraordinary people like those who bear up and cope with these most devastating losses -- well, there wouldn't be such losses. At least not now, at this particular time in our history. This is a truth that is so big and suffocating it feels as if there is a huge weight on one's chest to imagine it. Not the weight of an elephant, that is too simple. No, the weight of 200 million citizens not paying attention.

365 days in a hospital bed. Pray for miracles, please. For a dad to be able to say his son's name. To be able to read him a bedtime story.