Just Listen

Saturday, January 16th, I attended a memorial service for my friend, Captain Mariah Kochavi.

I hesitate to use the term “friend”, because I am not sure I knew her well enough to claim that title. However, I think Mariah is probably comfortable with it, and considering that she gave me something of considerable value, no other term seems quite appropriate.

Mariah was a veterinarian in the United States Army before suffering a severe brain injury in the summer of 2008. I met her through Team River Runner, the non-profit group that brought kayaking to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where it is now an adaptive-sports component of wounded warrior rehabilitation. Mariah’s struggle to overcome the unrelenting challenges of brain injury ended on December 24th.

I was reluctant to attend the memorial service. I had just returned home after ten days of traveling for funerals and memorial services of fellow warriors who had fallen in Afghanistan, and I was anxious to return to less solemn endeavors. Because Mariah is a Quaker, I was also concerned about how I, and her other military friends, would be received. The only other Quakers I have met were protesting the war in front of the main gate of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune (they behaved more civilly than any other group of protesters I have seen). Mariah, of course, had one of the very few positions in the armed forces that can be held by conscientious objectors – Veterinarian.

Although reluctant, I decided to “proceed as the way opened”, and arrived at the Sidwell Friends School, in Bethesda, on Saturday afternoon. Although I was early, all the parking spaces were filled, so I parked some distance away, in the yard – more like a field – adjoining the school. As I dodged mud puddles on my walk to the school, I took in all the sights and sounds around me (an involuntary legacy of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder). At the far end of the yard, in the tallest tree around, a crow was calling. It called about every twenty seconds, creating a rhythm.

Suddenly the words “Just listen” came to me, and I stopped in mid-stride…

At one of the kayak sessions conducted by Team River Runner at Walter Reed, I had found Mariah watching from the side of the pool, apparently despondent. Pain and fatigue had forced her to sit-out the session. I knew I should attempt to encourage her, but our previous conversations had been limited to an exchange of greetings. Kayaking and brain injury were the two things I knew we had in common, so I tried to engage her on those. Mariah did not respond, so I was not sure if my attempt was welcome, or if she was really there (I thought she might have “zoned out”).

I changed topics, and related my experience with Ride-Well, a therapeutic riding program at Rock Creek Park. I told her I had been partnered with Jackson, a horse that did not like to be touched – especially by men – but allowed me to groom him with no resistance. Keeping up the banter, and not expecting a response, I said “As a Veterinarian, I guess you probably know the reason for that, but I wish Jackson could tell me.” And at that, Mariah turned toward me, and with an earnestness best appreciated by another brain-injury survivor, said… “Just listen.”

Mariah had been there all along, completely engaged, but just too tired to talk.

That was what Mariah gave me. A lesson, an observation, a premonition — I don’t know how to characterize it, but I know it is valuable.

Not long after that, I listened to Jackson as intently as I could, and learned why he trusted me. It was because we shared a common hyper-alertness to our environment – Jackson, because horses are “prey animals” and he had been abused; and I, because of brain injury and post-traumatic stress. Consequently, we both were suspicious of anything that moved, made a noise, or just seemed out of place, until we investigated and verified it was not a threat.

I am not an “animal person”. Mariah is an animal person, and I have other friends who are. Some of them are Native Americans that I spent time with in Washington state. They related to me a cultural belief that when a crow calls out, creating a rhythm like that crow on Saturday afternoon, it is announcing that someone’s spirit has just traversed the path from physical death to eternal spiritual life.

I attended the memorial service, and remained for a while at the reception that followed – and discovered that religious and philosophical differences did not impede the courtesy, respect, and friendship that was afforded to Mariah’s military friends. I also discovered why I was there: I told a few people about the crow and what it might mean, and they seemed comforted by it.

When I left the reception hall, dodging mud puddles as I walked to my car, I looked for the crow, but it was gone. It did not need to be there, it did not need to call out anymore — I had already listened.

Thank you, Mariah >