ENOCH

The story of my life

By Enoch Phillip Fellenberger, Jr.

My first memory is when I lost my finger. I was four years old, and my sister and her girlfriend slammed my finger in a bedroom door. They were heavy set girls and it just came right off and I passed out.

I went up North quite a few times with my father. He bought a log cabin. He put in a cement floor and I helped him put it in and I got to write “Little Enoch” in the cement, since I was Little Enoch at the time. I was outgoing, misbehaving, a normal teenager. We had an ATV with six balloon tires with paddles on the wheels. It had a canvas top. It could float right across the lake or on land. I used to go fishing in it, with my dad.

Me and my best friend, Bobby Wyatt, stole my dad’s antique convertible, a ’65 Buick Riviera Convertible, and drove all over town. And we parked it at a pinball joint and somebody saw it and told my dad, and we got in trouble. I’ve been in many car shows with my father and his antique cars.

I was 15 when I had my accident. I got hit by a car on a foggy winter night. There was about three feet of snow on the ground. This took place in Ann Arbor, Michigan; my hometown. It was January, I think the 27th. 1982. I was smoking pot that I got from Shaky Jake. He’s a bum in Ann Arbor that is known around the world. He made t-shirts with himself on them and now he’s a millionaire but he still lives on the street, not in a house. I was walking. I was either coming home from or going to Chuckey Cheese, crossing the intersection of Stadium and Liberty.

Bobby was with me and he saw the accident. His mom took him out of school and he was with me every day when I was in a coma. I had a severe hematoma in my brain. I had a G-tube, a tracheotomy, an IV, and surgery on my brain to relieve the hematoma, which is a blood clot in my brain. I was in a coma six months and 28 days. The doctors told my family to make funeral arrangements because there was no hope. My family used to come and talk to me but I never could hear them. When you are in a coma, it is like being asleep with no dreams.

When I first opened my eyes, my mother is who I saw, and I started to cry. I was in a lot of pain. But I cried with relief seeing my family and friends. I couldn’t walk, talk, or move my arms or legs. I saw all my family gathered around. I was scared because I didn’t know what I had sticking out of me, all the tubes and stuff. I couldn’t talk because of the tracheotomy. But my whole family, uncles, cousins, mom, dad, brothers and sisters, were cheering me on saying I would make it.

I had a lot of contractures from being in the fetal position for seven months. They had to stretch me out. I used to be in tears when I went to PT. They had to take a medical hammer and chisel and chip away calcium deposits at my left elbow and right hip. I still have scars from the surgeries.

Just recently, Bobby visited me on his motorcycle with his wife and kids. They had no idea I was living here until one of the staff that knew his mother told her, and then he looked it up on the internet and came to see me. He made a surprising entrance to my group home. I looked up and saw him and started crying with joy and happiness. I had no idea he was coming. My mom and him kept it a secret. We went out to eat. I don’t recall the restaurant.

Bobby brought me a t-shirt that he made for me. The t-shirt has a picture of him and I on the front. And on the back is a poem he wrote for me when I was in my coma. It is about my injury and the love we have for each other. He made a T-shirt for me with the poem on the back.

Me and his dream was to travel the world on our motorcycles, but I didn’t get to do it. He did though. He drove his motorcycle to come and see me, and his wife and his kids rode on the other, which was a three-wheeler.

Bobby’s Poem

To My Best Friend Enoch

My dear friend Enoch today

I stood at your side

Looking down on you

I shook and nearly cried

As I look back in memory

Recalling good times shared together

It crossed my mind that

They may be fading forever

Then I realized that

this could never be

you and I have so much

of this world left to see

Standing there silently

With my head slightly bowed

I can almost hear

Your thoughts speak aloud

For the first time

I seem to see you smile

As if to say I’ll be ok

In just a little while

All your loved ones gathered around you.

All of those who know and care

They gave you love support and hope

Though never sure you were aware

Though many tears have fallen

And many prayers were said

Deep in our hearts we always knew

That you’d come out ahead

And when I moved here to Tennessee I went to BINGO with my mother and I won one thousand dollars all by myself. I started crying and my mom said not to cry but it was the most money I have ever won. My mom lives on the top of Roan Mountain with her boyfriend. He has a Corvette that is one one of three in the world.