KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Three people dead in Boston. Patrick Farnan of Weston, Mo., can only think of another bombing and three soldiers dead.
“When he was killed, there were two others killed with him,” says Patrick.
Patrick and his wife lost their son, Private First Class Colby Farnan, to a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2005. There’s so much pain with that memory, but also some relief because not long ago, Patrick was asking himself when his son died.
Much of Patrick’s memory was wiped out in October when a motorcyle crash left him with a traumatic brain injury and multiple fractures.
“There’s a lot of times I wanted to quit. There’s a lot of times I wanted to die,” says Patrick.
Several months in hospitals were followed by several months in therapy at the Rehabilitation Institute of Kansas City or RIKC.
Patrick learned to walk again.
“The first time they said ‘put your heel to your toe’, I’m like what?” he recalls.
He learned to make new connections in the brain. He says it’s amazing the things a person can relearn. It’s what Patrick wants the injured in the Boston bombing to know as they enter rehab. He wants them to feel what he felt — all the prayers and positive thoughts from countless people.
“You cannot let them down. You cannot. You cannot. It’s just not a choice,” he says.
Patrick says the son he lost to an enemy bomb came to him somehow after he was injured and told him, “You’ll be fine”.
And he is. Next week, Patrick will return to his job as principal of Buckner Elementary in the Fort Osage School District. He’ll be part-time at first. He hopes to be full-time next school year.
