{"id":10857,"date":"2013-07-29T16:30:46","date_gmt":"2013-07-29T16:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brainstreams.ca\/the-gray-beyond-a-family-copes-after-tragedy\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T09:16:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T16:16:58","slug":"the-gray-beyond-a-family-copes-after-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/the-gray-beyond-a-family-copes-after-tragedy\/","title":{"rendered":"The gray beyond: A family copes after tragedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"field field-type-link field-field-link-original-article\">HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA \u2014\u00a0Thomas \u201cTC\u201d Maslin easily reads to himself the local newspaper or latest issue of the Economist.<\/div>\n<p>Reading aloud a simple children\u2019s book is another story.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFive little ducks went out one day. Over the hills and far away. The woman duck said quack, quack, quack,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Read it again, his instructor prompts. \u201cThe\u00a0mother\u00a0duck said quack, quack, quack,\u201d he reads this time.<\/p>\n<p>TC\u2019s wife, Abby, beams. \u201cYour quacking sound is awesome!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He reads another sentence with no mistakes. \u201cOh my goodness,\u201d he exclaims, laughing.<\/p>\n<p>TC\u2019s aphasia \u2014 his struggle to speak \u2014 resulted from a brutal assault on Capitol Hill last August. His intellect is largely intact. But his brain labors to command his mouth to say what he wants to say.<\/p>\n<p>As the first\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/archives-thomas-maslin-assault\/c31931a8-f542-11e2-9434-60440856fadf_topic.html\" data-xslt=\"_http\">anniversary of the attack approaches<\/a>, TC, now 30, and his family are still putting their lives back together. Intensive speech therapy through a program in Canada is one way; he wants to read again to his 2-year-old son, Jack. He also wants to teach him soccer someday. He wants to return to work and provide for Jack and Abby.<\/p>\n<p>TC and his family are also still absorbing how their lives will never be the same. He is no longer the man Abby married four years ago \u2014 the handsome husband, the energetic runner and soccer player, the brilliant young policy analyst specializing in energy resources.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/local\/the-gray-beyond-a-family-copes-after-tragedy\/2013\/07\/27\/a7b8857a-e0da-11e2-8ae9-5db15d3c0fca_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read More&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA \u2014\u00a0Thomas \u201cTC\u201d Maslin easily reads to himself the local newspaper or latest issue of the Economist. Reading aloud a simple children\u2019s book is another story. \u201cFive little [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}