Groundwaters

Who are we? … the Groundwaters Staff

August 10, 2008 on 4:24 am | In Staff profiles | No Comments

Jennifer Byers Chambers

Jen Chambers was one of Judy’s first volunteers with Groundwaters and is the person on our team who provides the youth and fresh ideas that keep us all on track. Jen’s eagerness to carry out the projects that she takes on usually guarantees success. She’s not afraid of new directions and seeks out knowledge on how best to proceed whether it is through writing conferences, mentors or research. She’s the fiction writer on our team. Her wonderful imagination and her ability to make characters and settings come to life for her readers will ensure that she will get noticed some day soon by the publishing world.

Besides being an excellent writer, Jen is the mother of two (Riley and Quinn) and the wife of Ryan Chambers, a teacher and coach at Mapleton High School.

Jen has written for numerous publications including the Register-Guard and The West Lane News. She is in the process of marketing her book, Learning Life, which is the story about two women’s struggles with traumatic brain injury and how daily chores affect their lives. “TBI” is a much too familiar subject for Jen, who has lived her story following a near-fatal car accident during her high school years at Crow High School.

She is a member of Willamette Writers Group and the Brain Injury Association of America. You can find examples of her work and links to magazines and brain-injury-related sites on her website at http://www.geocities.com/jenniferbyerschambers.

I am including for your enjoyment a sample of Jen’s writing entitled “The Price of Recovery” that was published in Volume 4 Issue 1, the October 2007 winter issue of Groundwaters.

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The Price of Recovery

Traumatic Brain Injury Support Group
6:00 Wednesday
All Welcome

The other people in the support group were easy to loathe on sight. The idea of meeting with a bunch of other freaks was not something that would make her feel better at his point. Tom, the therapist, would say that she was cutting herself off before she started, but he was full of shit anyway. He didn’t know what it was like.

“Hello?” A woman in a gray suit jacket and pencil skirt raised her hand, waved it around for attention. “Excuse me? Everybody? It’s time to get started.”

The people milling about the large meeting room slowly filed in to their seats. No one sat in the front; all the rows were wide in order to accommodate the various pieces of equipment that assisted the TBI survivors. SarahBeth didn’t bother to hide the disgust she felt at being in the same room with these people. Lip curled, she hobbled with her walker, much slower than she would have liked, never looking up from the cracked tile until she got to her own chair. For a relatively easy retreat, she selected one on the interior aisle near the back and maneuvered herself into the orange plastic bucket seat.

“All right,” the lady in charge was sweating profusely through the faint shadow of a moustache on her upper lip. “It’s time to get to know each other. Now, you don’t have to say your name if you don’t want to. If you aren’t comfortable, say ‘pass,’ okay?” In a businesslike manner, she pushed up the sleeves of her jacket until they were three-quarters length and checked the dial of a thin gold watch. “Just want to get started on time,” she looked at the group, eyes wide and reflected in chunky glasses ten years out of date. “Okay. I’m Melody Gates, and I’m a support group facilitator. My son died from a traumatic brain injury six years ago this fall.”

“Hi, Melody,” some of the more experienced support-groupers chorused. Oh, please, SarahBeth thought, like I need AA. I don’t even want to see these people, let alone identify with them. The chair was uncomfortable, and she could feel the stares of the people around the room settle on her like pins in a butterfly’s wings.

“Oh.” It took a minute to find the words, and her face burned with embarrassment. Would it always take this long? “S- SarahBeth,” she forced out at last, and ducked her head to hide the anger. God, she should have just said “Pass,” what an idiot. Since her head was down she didn’t have to look anyone in the eye, especially that kid in the special wheelchair, the one with a breathing tube. She was definitely not as bad as him. His mom held up a straw for him to drink from. Oh crap, they were still waiting. It felt like time spun thick in the air while she waited it out, but thank goodness Melody stepped in.

“Thank you, SarahBeth,” she said with a big smile, “I’m sure I read about you. Everyone, SarahBeth here’s the one who was trapped in a car for seven days. Remember? Up on the mountain there? Well, here you are. Nice to see you, SarahBeth.” It was hard to tell if Melody was sincere; her voice had a ring of admiration in it but her eyes were soft with pity.

There was no way she was going to talk to any of these people. The only stuff she could remember before she was trapped in the car was not good, so why talk about that? What was she supposed to say, in a group like this? Hi, I’m SarahBeth; my brain’s totally screwed up, nice to meet you? That is, if she could find a way to make the right words come out of her mouth. A few bits of black fingernail polish remained on her fingernails, and she concentrated on chipping them off to tune the group out.

The person to her left was finished speaking at long last. “You are supposed to have sympathy for people less fortunate than you,” a phrase her foster mother said like a mantra, floated through her mind. Well, foster mom wasn’t stuck here in the loony bin with a bunch of crazies.

“I’m Dr. Catalano. I’m a Brain Trauma Physician here at the hospital. I like to check out the support group when I can.” He waved his right hand to the crowd, gave a reassuring smile. “I brought a guest. This is Maggie McLeod. She was a patient of mine many years ago.”

The woman sitting next to him sat on the outside of the aisle, her back to the wall, watching the people in the room with a guarded look on her face. Her hair, halfway pulled up, was more brown than red. Fish-belly white skin showed as her sleeve rode up when she, too, raised her hand to wave.

“I’m Maggie.” A deep, in through the nose, out through the mouth breath escaped before she went on. “I used to live here too.”

It was said with some surprise, whether as to her being here, or as to her being lucky enough to get out, SarahBeth couldn’t tell. It was hideous having someone from the outside see her. Who did she think she was, coming in here all… normal? Misery overtook SarahBeth. Drawing her walker to her, she leaned her upper body on its support and felt the peculiar aloneness one can only experience when surrounded by people who ostensibly feel what you feel.