Life Stories #65: Su Meck

In 1988, Su Meck was hit in the head by a low-hanging ceiling fan, further hitting her head on the kitchen counter as she collapsed to the floor. She experienced a traumatic brain injury that completely erased her memories of the first twenty-some years of her life. I Forgot to Remember is the story of how she slowly, painfully rebuilt her life. In this conversation, she discusses what happened to her, and why her memoir's not the feel-good version of her story that people might have been expecting.

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photo: Jared Leeds

If you enjoyed last month’s interview with David Stuart MacLean about his recovery from amnesia, you’ll definitely want to give this week’s episode of Life Stories a listen. Like MacLean, Su Meck suffers from amnesia, and has lost the memories of her first two decades (and then some); she writes about the experience of rebuilding her life in I Forgot to Remember. It’s definitely not a smooth path, and Meck talks frankly about the emotional toll not just on herself, but on her family—and yet, even as her husband was “coping” in the worst ways possible, her young children more than rose to the occasion, becoming her guardians even more, she says, than she was theirs. When her college graduation a few years ago became the catalyst for a Washington Post story, Meck says people immediately started approaching her, wanting her to tell her life story… but while she’s delivered an inspirational memoir, it’s not the heartwarming version they probably had in mind.

Listen to Life Stories #65: Su Meck (MP3 file); or download this file by right-clicking (Mac users, option-click). Or subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes, where you can catch up with earlier episodes and be alerted whenever a new one is released. (And if you are an iTunes subscriber, please consider rating and reviewing the podcast!)