He wants to start a support group in Abilene to help those who have suffered physical injuries, especially brain trauma, strokes, the onset of epilepsy or seizures, and debilitating illnesses which leave them unable to work and which challenge them to overcome a whole new set of difficulties.

“This is the greatest opportunity I’ve ever had. Disappointments can become opportunities,” Brubaker said, depending on how we interpret our circumstances. “Everybody has disappointments, but life can be salvaged. I can either look at the parts of my life I’m no longer able to do, or I can look at all the things I still can do. I can’t work [at a conventional job] now, but it gives me the time and opportunity to help others.”

During his first day of work as a trucker for an East Texas logging company, a falling tree struck Brubaker inflicting several injuries. When he woke up in the hospital 32 days later, he had a feeding tube inserted in a hole in his side, T.B.I. (Traumatic Brain Injury), a shattered arm . . . and a shattered life.

“I lost everything,” Brubaker said. Life as he had known it--the ability to hold a job, his wife and three sons {left him}, his identity, his meaning and purpose--was over. Brubaker remembers pacing up and down the gravel road leading to his house, clutching his painful side, saying, “Why did this happen to me, Lord?” And the changes were not only frustrating to him but to all those around him.

Even small changes are disruptive and can cause family, friends and fellow workers to become anxious, irritable, scared, to back away as if you had some kind of contagious disease . . . or worse. When cataclysmic changes occur, impacting every aspect of your life--personality, lifestyle, memory, ability to perform ordinary daily functions--others frequently become so uncomfortable they withdraw their support completely . . . just when you need it more than ever before. Sometimes, you find yourself alone, rejected, at the lowest point of your life.

It’s not necessarily because they are bad people, but maybe it becomes too painful, too confusing, too much responsibility, too scary . . .

Brubaker tells of a time when he was aimlessly hitchhiking around the country, mostly with truckers, praying and reading his Bible a lot. While reading about the Sea of Galilee, he flipped to the maps in the back of his Bible. His gaze fell Abilene. Feeling like it was guidance, he said, “That’s it. I’m going to live in Abilene, Texas.” He caught rides from California, where he had this epiphany, and settled here.

At the Salvation Army, Brubaker met Linda Jones, his guardian angel, currently working on her Masters in Psychology at A.C.U. [and doing some work with Dr. Sam Brinkman, a local Neuro-Psychologist--check this part out with her] “That lady took me under her wing,” Brubaker said. {“I had a cardboard sign . . . I was planning to walk the streets begging.” Check out this part.}

“The body, mind and spirit have an amazing ability to heal,” Jones said, “ and they are all interrelated,” Jones said. Her Bachelor of Science from A.C.U. is in Human Development & Family Studies. “Sometimes people just need a helping hand to take those important first steps on the road to recovery. Often, one of the hardest things to overcome is the debilitating depression some patients experience.”

She has been instrumental in coaching Brubaker, teaching him how to compensate for lost areas of function, calling him every day to ask him whether he remembered to take his medication, posting his appointments on his calendar, being available to run by his apartment, etc.

“God loved me first,” said Jones. She says that God’s love is so abundant that it enables her to share that love with others. “I love people.” Jones says she is willing to help launch the new support group and to facilitate it. need a good quote about why it is important to have a support group

There seems to be a spiritual law that goes something like this: If you want (to reap) something, give it away (sow it). If you want friendship, be a friend. If you are hungry, help feed others . . . and so forth.

Perhaps because of his desire to teach and comfort, several real live angels will materialize to help Brubaker help himself and others. Maybe this support group will be sustained by the perfect people.

“I survived,” Brubaker said. “I learned a lot of things, and now that I’ve recovered enough, I want to help others.” He is looking for someone to help him write a book so he can share his experience, strength and hope. Brubaker writes, journals, about his feelings and experiences and has kept pages of notes from his early stages of recovery. “It reminds me of where I used to be . . . what state of mind I was in and how far I have come,” Brubaker said.

“I still have my bad days, falling out, having seizures.” Brubaker tells of a day just last week when he had to go to the hospital. “But there have been good changes, too. I was never able to tell a joke or laugh about my stuff before. I wasn’t comfortable talking to people and I didn’t feel a need to help others until after my accident. It was a wake-up call. Now I can move mountains if I feel my faith strong enough.”

“A lot of people don’t know anything about brain injury,” Brubaker said. “I lost my temporal lobe which is the part containing the short term memory. I have run into people who thought I was drunk or high so I made up a little rhyme: I’m not drunk, I’m not high, I’ve got T.B.I.” Brubaker also wears a cap but keeps the side of his shaved so he can show unbelievers his surgery scars.

There are a lot of people out there who probably want and need support, Brubaker reckons. “It’s a silent epidemic.” {See Booklet}

Every year in the U.S.A., according to a pamphlet published by the Brain Injury Association of Texas, Inc., headquartered in Austin, Texas, over 56,000 people die of brain injuries and over 373,000 people have brain injuries severe enough to require hospitalization. Of this group, approximately 90,000 people a year are left with cognitive or behavioral deficits of such a degree as to result in lifelong disabilities. Due to the lack of community rehabilitation facilities, it says, survivors of brain injury have often been closeted away in psychiatric institutions or nursing homes. Support groups can be so important to recovery. “It is so important to validate feelings and normalize situations,” Jones said.

Sometimes, it can be such a relief to have someone bring a really scary subject out into the light for examination by a group. A wonderful, spiritual event happens, a magical moment, a healing mystery, at the instant that a dark, worrisome secret is transformed from an individual terror into a common bond with others, into something you can laugh about as a group. That laughter opens up a space that can be filled with light and healing.

When you become able to face a problem, you can begin to deal with it, to feel it. Feel. Deal. Heal.

If a group of fellow strugglers can agree that, of course, a certain problem is aggravating, frightening and upsetting, it can take the edge off. Also, when you realize you aren’t the only person on earth dealing with a situation, and that it can get easier to deal with over time, and that there are ways to compensate for it, it doesn’t look so enormous or seem so insurmountable.

Someone might say, “You know, I can never remember whether I’ve taken my medicine or not and I feel so stupid that I’m afraid to let anybody know.”

“Yeah. I’ve learned to just use one of those organizers that has the days of the week on it so I can go look and see if I have taken that day’s.” Then everyone nods. “Now, all I have to do is remember which day of the week it is.” Laughter, nods.

Someone else says, “Yes. And I have to write all my appointments down on a calendar and look at it every morning when I get up or I miss stuff.”

Suddenly, you are not the only person on earth having to struggle with the problems inherent with short-term memory loss. Then a family member who hasn’t had a brain injury says, “Heck, I have to put my female hormones in one of those things to remember and keep a calendar, too! The other day, I left my day planner at the Mall and missed about six appointments before somebody found it and called me.” More laughter.

Not only am I not alone in this struggle following my brain injury, but ordinary people are also dealing with the same problems.

Twelve Step programs have been bringing common problems into the light for years and have been the source of much relief. Someone suggested that Allan attend Alcoholics Anonymous. He did, but realized that the set of issues he was coping with were very different.

He wants to form a support group for people dealing with challenges resulting from physical injuries or illness that leave people unable to work, drive or function as they recently did.

The first meeting of the group will be day, date, time, place. Linda Jones will be facilitating. One suggested name for the group is S.A.F.E., Support & Aid For Everyone. For more information,

Email Allan