"I hope you die."

We're watching a YouTube clip of an interview on my neighbor's phone, the woman in tears as she says this.

The video is centered around the story of Martin Pistorius, who later went on to write a book called Ghostboy. In it, he chronicles the true story of how he suddenly became very ill and paralyzed for over a decade.

When it happened, there was seemingly no hope for him. The doctors wrote him off as a living vegetable, a human container without mind and soul.

But the most horrific part is ...

... he was conscious the entire time.

The reason my neighbor is showing me this is because his son had fallen from the branch of a tree the day before, landing on his little baby head. I could see the worry in his eyes and hear it in his voice.

When you have a concussion, the onus falls on you to communicate if something is off. Easy enough for an adult to do, but impossible for a toddler who has yet to formulate his first sentence.

That was the point of our discussion - not being able to say anything when you're the only one who knows what's wrong.

I immediately thought of my senior dog who had recently passed away and how the pain crippled him near the end. I felt powerless, unable to ease his agony because the source of his suffering was always a mystery.

But the moments of personal weakness only came when I gave in to my emotions, made the story about me. Though I wasn't always successful, doing what was best for him kept my feelings at bay and made those last days bearable.

Perhaps this would have been of little consolation to Pistorius's mother, but it's only a miserable experience when you center in on your own misery. It's more than enough to try your best, to keep the hope alive every day.

By all accounts Martin calls her a wonderful mother, heaping nothing but praise on her for tending to him throughout this terrible ordeal. Certainly there's no way he would have made it back without her care.

If only she had found the inner strength, or moral support from another, that would have prevented her from looking into her son's eyes and saying those words.

There are just some things you'll never be able to take back.