Saturday, February 10, 2007

My favorite things

I have been a huge fan of For Better of For Worse since it started. I could swear that Lynn Johnston was living my life or parts of it. And She always was going thru the same things I was at the exact same time. We had babies 'together' and went thru menopause 'together'. Now her father is living thru the effects of a stroke and she has crawled into that aspect of my life also. I lost my Dad nearly 11 years ago and before that for 3 years we lived with the residual aftermath of a massive stroke not unlike the one that the comic strip Grandfather is living thru. This week has been all about the aphasia aspect of it and she has nailed it down once again. It brought tears to my eyes today seeing how it is from the viewpoint of the stroke victim. My Dad couldn't tell me things either, all he could do for a while was say s*** or loblolly pine tree. That made for some interesting conversations and dinner table talk to be sure! OR picking up the fork and calling it spoon but then if I said 'show me the fork' he would point right at the fork. So the brain knew the object but the words were just elusive. He never could get my name again but he would just always call me the 'elderest' if I asked him who I was. And He remembered my birthday by numbers so I changed my phone number to those and he could always call me. Matter of fact he changed everything to those numbers because he could remember them. He labled me and my sister by what he remembered us doing. I was the painter and she was the cook. (Both our specialties, Art and Food). He is still alive in our memories even tho he left us so long ago.
Thank you Lynn Johnston for triggering my memories and for being so understanding of what goes on with a stroke victim and the family.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is beautiful, Vonda.

I read FBOW every day, too and have been touched by this story. I have not had a stroke victim in my life yet, but it could and may happen.. and she did a wonderful job of showing the empahty.

Your story is beautiful, too.

Cindy

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Her Grace Lady Vonda the Infinite of Longer Interval
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