The Comet’s Tail: A Memoir of No Memory

We are nothing more than our memories, and when robbed of these embedded impressions, we must wrestle with the enigma of what and where and who we are. Amy Nawrocki was victim to an apparent viral neuropathy during her first year in college. As a life-saving measure, she was placed in a coma for several months. Inexplicably, yet amazingly, she emerged from this induced state and over the course of a therapeutic year struggled to regain her extinguished living skills. Supported and comforted by family, friends, and other advocates, with ups and downs, the author was finally able to recover her health and return to school and joyfully now teaches creative writing. This book is the story of her probe into that difficult time, in which she pieces together journal entries, medical records, and family stories as part of her quest to anchor her location during this critical interlude. The in-limbo period along with the reawakening is compared to the clearing of the comet’s tail as it approaches the sun. The writer is a poet, and the magic of her words and the seaming of her images ferries the reader up into the nebulous galaxy, floating among the stars, while awesome wonder fixes the scene…