Look At Me Now” — A Message from the Silence

One Fall Away: Conclusion

“Look At Me Now” — A Message from the Silence

By Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita

📝 Names and some identifying details have been changed to protect privacy.

We’ve come to the end of this 4-part series. But this story—this truth—is still happening. Every day. Everywhere.

I shared these stories not to shame or shock you, but because I’ve seen what happens after the moment.
After the crash. After the overdose. After the fall.

And I believe, if Janey, George, and Michael could speak clearly now, they’d say this:

🧠 “Look at Me Now...”
A voice for the voiceless

“I was arguing with my husband. Then everything went dark. Now I can't speak. I can't feed myself. My mother is the only one who visits.”
– Janey

“We were going to Disneyland. I was asleep, no seatbelt. The van crashed. Now I have a feeding tube. They overfeed me. My face is sewn together. I flinch when the nurse burns my skin to clean the feeding tube infection.”
– George

“I was brilliant. Top student in BC. Then a car flipped into a ditch. Now I have uncontrollabe seizures. I can’t walk. I wear a catheter. A caregiver has to roll me, change me, clean me, and put on a special condom-style catheter to collect urine—because I can’t even do that myself.”
– Michael

The Unseen Burden

Let’s talk about what people don’t see.

When you’re a caregiver for the brain injured, you’re not just helping someone brush their hair. You’re pulling on gloves. You’re cleaning feeding tubes surrounded by pus. You’re wiping poop. You’re soothing someone through seizures.

Sometimes, you’re fitting a catheter onto a man young man of 19 who can’t even recognize that you’re there. You’re trying to bring a colouring book, hoping for a flicker of joy—and instead, you get called into the office and told, “She can’t do that. Don’t try.”

This is real life. Not TV. Not a movie. These were just fill-in jobs for me—but they never left my memory. I still dream of them. I still wonder what happened.

And I still feel this in my bones: It all happened in one second.

I Moved On… They Couldn’t

After that summer, I returned to school. I graduated. I became a photographer. I worked on a cruise ship. I saw the world. I danced, laughed, created, lived.

And they—Janey, George, Michael—were frozen in time. Trapped in a body that no longer worked. A mind that couldn’t escape. They never got to do any of it.

This is why I speak up. Not to make you sad, but to make you aware.

So that maybe, just maybe, someone will wear a helmet.
Someone will think before riding high or speeding downhill with no protection.
Someone will check on the man passed out at the bus stop.
Someone will stop. Call. Care.

One Final Ask

If you’ve read this far—thank you. Now I ask you:

• If you ride: Please wear a helmet.
• If you use drugs: Don’t use alone. Carry Narcan. Ask for help.
• If you see someone down: Don’t walk by. You could save their brain—or their life.
• If you have kids: Teach them. Show them. Protect them.

In Honor of the Silent

This series is for Janey. For George. For Michael. For every voice lost in an instant.

💔 May we never forget them.
💪 May we honour them with action.

Because we are all just one fall away.