Every stroke is different and each person’s response to a stroke is as unique as the individual. Whether you are the family member, the friend, the neighbor, the doctor, the nurses or the person having the stroke experience, your reaction tells a lot about you.
The stroke I had gave me a chance to realize I knew very little about strokes. In our family, only my mother had a stroke in her 94th year. She received very good care, regained some of her lost motor functions, never lost her ability to speak and to think, and maintained her uncomplaining and cheerful attitude. She was tired. And she was ready to die and be reunited with her husband, her son, her mom and pop and brothers and many relatives and friends she had outlived. Four months after her stroke, she passed peacefully in my arms. Her stroke was not the immediate cause of her death; her readiness to surrender into passing on was.
This was the limit of my stroke knowledge. The fact that nearly every medication advertises side effects including the risk of heart attack and stroke, didn’t cause me any alarm. I don’t take pharmaceutical medications, my mother’s stroke came in advanced old age, I was healthy and active and not that old and enjoying my life, so stroke and heart attack information seemed irrelevant to me. It has been said that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Apparently, it was time for this next phase of my learning. The lessons have been many. They have been astounding, revealing hidden beliefs and testing my faith and reaffirming what I know to be true. I have strengthened my resolve to live my truth.
O O O O O O O O
Stroke!
Broke?
Stroke of Genius Stroke of Insight Stroke of Imagination Stroke of Midnight
or Stroke at the Eleventh Hour
Welcome…
Broken Heart Broken Body Broken Brain
Welcome…
Broke through Fears Broke from Complacence Broke away Outmoded Ways
Broken Wide Open
The Way The Trust The Courage The Rejoicing
Broke the Old
Do not Fix
Do not Restore
Stroke gently the Now
With Love
- pab – October 2018 ©
to be continued tomorrow….typing with one or two fingers of my left hand is tiring…