From home, even.

I think I've heard of that, if it's what I'm remembering.

There was this kid in tge 1960s. He got hit by a car, but didn't die. He wasn't in a coma, but it looked like he was in a coma but awake.

He was kept on life support, but really the life support wasn't needed. They found he was actually breathing just fine. But they kept him on it, in his living room.

He was just a kid. Like 7 years old.

Flash forward to the late 90s and he, now nearly 40 was propped up on the couch like normal. His mom was watching wheel of fortune. Then his mom just hears her son take a guess at the puzzle. Not only was it the right answer, but it was the first words he had spoken in like 35 years.

Turns out his mom would watch wheel of fortune, and jeapordy every night. And every night in his own head he would play along.

The story never explains how he snapped out of it. He just took a guess at the wheel of fortune answer just as he'd done for years. This time it was verbal.

The son later on asked his mom if she remembered a moment that had happened in the 70s. His mom walked into the room, saw him, and said "Why won't you just die already? You're tearing this family apart. We can't keep funding your burden...."

And then she left the room. Never to speak of it again.

That moment lived rent free in this guys head for 20+ years. Everyday knowing he's hurting his family. Everyday being a burden. From his own mothers mouth. He's their burden. That's the thought he had every day.

And when he asked his mom if she remembered that, she burst into tears. She didn't remember at all.

So now it's the 90s. He's speaking for the first time. His friend who he knew before the accident, left work early. Didn't even tell anyone he was leaving. He got a text. "John is speaking". He was in John's living room within 15 minutes.

This friend had visited him sometimes every day. Sometimes a few times a week. But always with him. And because he had come over, everyday his friend for 30+ years had talked to him as if he were normal. So he learned of his friend's life in real time. And from Johns point of view, he didn't even need to catch up, because he was never out of the loop.

One of the first things he wanted to do was to meet his friends wife. He had been married for 10 years, but she never felt comfortable visiting. But his friend would talk about her so much that he felt like he knew her already.

I changed the names. Mostly because I read this story about 15 years ago and don't remember the names. I'm probably forgetting other details too. It just stuck out to me that his mom, probably in a moment of frustration that she didn't mean, gave him such mental trauma with just a few sentences that would last a lifetime. And also it stuck out to me how a 7 year old kept his friend in his life, until almost 40 years old without one word spoken from John.