After the Stroke Read online

  There was also a cassette from a composer, Emma Lou Diemer, at the University of California at Santa Barbara, a recording of her composition for my poem “Invocation”—at its first performance. It was beautiful although the words did not come through, but the musical atmosphere was just right.

  At four this morning Pierrot snuggled up under my hand, butting his head into my palm, and lay there purring very loudly—a sweet way to start this day.

  He is a ravishing sight, a fluffy white extravaganza and his large, very soft floppy paws suggest that he will become a huge cat.

  Saturday, April 12

  Frost on the grass this morning.

  Pierrot decided at four that it was time for a wild tear, up and down and roundabout without stopping for an hour—sliding the scatter rugs under the bed, thumping loudly, scrambling in and out of the bath. At such times his eyes are red; he is a violent spirit, a land of fury and sometimes makes a hoarse, loud, ugly miaow of rage. So by five when it was time to let Tamas out I was tired, but I did get an hour’s sleep before I got up at six-thirty and now the sun is out.

  It is nine-fifteen. I have done a laundry and cleaned out a big drawer in the kitchen which was full of mouse dirt, a horrid job, and I’m glad to get it off my mind.

  When I came home from the hospital after the stroke the daily chores seemed insuperable. Making my bed left me so exhausted that I lay down on it at once for an hour. I realized that I had always hurried through the chores in order to get up here to my desk as fast as possible—it felt strange not to be pressured for the first time since I moved here fourteen years ago—and I tried to learn from it, to learn to take the chores as an exercise, deliberately slowing down, savoring the smoothing of a sheet, the making of order as delightful in itself—not just something to get out of the way.

  Often when I lay in bed after my breakfast which I take up on a tray, the light shone through the stained glass phoenix Karen Saum had had made for my seventieth birthday. It always felt like a good augury to watch it glow, blue and red.

  Perhaps the phoenix can only begin to rise from its embers when it has reached the very end, death itself. With Bramble’s death I felt the wilderness die in me, some secret place where poetry lived. She was so wild—passionate and distant at the same time. When Pierrot comes so easily to be petted early in the morning I remember that it took five years for Bramble to creep up from the end of the bed and lie in the crook of my arm. But then the bond was very deep.

  The hardest thing for me to give up after the stroke was writing to Juliette Huxley. Forty years ago we were intimate friends, but time and change intervened, misunderstanding broke the bond, and only now in these last months has she opened the door—and we are communicating again at last. She is eighty-nine. Time is running out—and the frustration of being unable to keep the slight thread intact between us is very hard to bear.

  So I made up a dream of flying over to England in June and taking her to a country inn for a few days where we could talk instead of writing. That was the final thing I realized I had to give up. I’m not well enough, and she has had several bouts with flu and herself hesitated to come.

  I spent a sleepless night trying to accept that I shall probably never see her again—that was the death of the spirit, the end of dreaming impossible dreams. Strangely enough, the next day I began this journal, and knew that my real self was coming back.

  Sunday, April 13

  At last a real spring day, brilliant sun, no wind, the ocean murmuring or rather roaring gently in the distance. It made me remember that when I first came here I often thought I heard a train going by—but it was the ocean, not passing through, always to be there.

  Having a disability has one good effect. I am far more aware of and sympathetic about the illnesses some of my friends are struggling to surmount than I was when I was well. It is companionable to share some of the day-to-day triumphs and despairs. I’m afraid terribly cheerful, well people are no help at all!

  I am aware for the first time perhaps what courage it takes to grow old, how exasperating it is no longer to be able to do what seemed nothing at all even a year ago.

  And I am learning some of the things not to say to a person who has had a stroke. It’s a good idea not to seem to expect great improvement. “Are you feeling better?” when there is no chance that the person addressed can feel better quickly. For instance: work. Several people suggested I keep a journal—in the first weeks after February twentieth. This caused me to shout and weep. “I can’t write a line! I’m not myself and shan’t be for a long time.” It felt like cruelty—like saying to a cripple in a wheelchair, “it will do you good to take a walk.”(!)

  A month ago writing a few lines in this book would have been impossible. Will simply had no effect. I had to give up doing anything fast. And the worst has been to have poetry dead inside me—not a line runs through my head.

  I have not been able to listen to music at all since early January—perhaps because it has been so closely connected with poetry. I don’t dare, for fear of breaking into pieces.

  Monday, April 14

  Warm sun and a calm blue sea. Maggie Thomas is here raking leaves along the fence. At eight I got out the rakes, the wheelbarrow, fertilizer and put lime around some of the clematis—but when she got here—such a help!—I was done in as though after a full day of outdoor work. It is so frustrating!

  However, Tamas actually walked out and lay down by Maggie in his old place under the maple tree. He has been so lame I was in despair yesterday. So maybe spring weather will give him a lift! And me, too.

  Tuesday, April 15

  Maggie Vaughan overnight—she comes like Ceres bearing baskets of goodies—applesauce, cookies, thin calves liver, fresh eggs from the farm—cooked our supper although I made an eggplant dish earlier as a vegetable. The thin calves liver was delicious, and for dessert homemade strawberry ice cream, the best I have ever tasted! I feel so cherished and shielded when she is here—and before she left she had even brushed Tamas who did need it. I have felt so badly to neglect the dear thing as I have done for lack of energy.

  Pierrot played some mild games with her before supper but never showed off one of his wild hurricanes—as he is apt to do early in the morning—instead, slept from five to six nuzzling into my arm.

  All this homey peace broken into, of course, by the horrendous news of our bombing of Tripoli and “punishing” Qaddafi by killing at least one hundred civilians and rousing the Arab world against us. What has this outrageous deed of childish reprisal done for us? I feel humiliated, ashamed. Now we shall wait for Qaddafi’s revenge—then what? Another bombing? More innocent dead? No wonder our allies are dubious. I am unable to say more or even to think. A black day.

  Wednesday, April 16

  Expecting cold rain and wind, we are given another golden morning—but I got overtired yesterday. It was so good to see Janice and have a bowl of her superior fish chowder again and to hear about her exhausting interview yesterday, but we were both too tired really and I was in bed by seven-thirty, then couldn’t sleep, too aware at night of what is going on under my skin—fingers of my right hand go numb—my whole head itches, anxiety—another stroke? Absurd, of course.

  The good news is that Dr. Chayka has agreed to take me off Lanoxin—and I hope in a few days to feel well after three and one-half months of discomfort all day long. The drained feeling in my head is altogether other, the effect of the stroke. But it would be wonderful to enjoy meals, and Scotch—and not feel quite as sick. It has been depleting. I’ll see Dr. Petrovich, the heart specialist, on May second—and Janice meanwhile will monitor my pulse—(it may start to race without Lanoxin).

  Youth, it occurs to me, has to do with not being aware of one’s body, whereas old age is often a matter of consciously overcoming some misery or other inside the body. One is acutely aware of it.

  I simply never thought about this until the stroke—even when all my teeth had to be removed last year! So I have been l
ucky. But I see now that the stroke has made me take a leap into old age instead of approaching it gradually.

  The kitten is so perfectly at ease inside his body that it is a joy to contemplate him, sometimes lying on his back with back legs stretched straight out and front legs stretched straight over his head. Such ease!

  Friday, April 18

  Yesterday, off Lanoxin and expecting to feel better, I felt so ill I could do nothing but lie around and wait for things to change inside my body. So it was especially moving to find a letter about As We Are Now in the mail that spoke to me with force.

  The writer, Kathleen Daly, S.N.D., wrote in bed with the flu where she suddenly remembered an experience she had had as a nurse’s aide in a nursing home in 1982–1984—and what the novel had meant. She says:

  The relationship you describe between the main character and Mrs. Close had so much likeness to a relationship I experienced that I always find comfort in reading those tender passages.… The woman I cared for was eighty-three years old and had had a severe cerebral hemorrhage that left her paralysed on one side and speechless and angry. Her family did not know how to relate to her in this state and were frightened and depressed by her uncontrollable anger and bitterness.

  I, having never known her in any other way, fell in love with her. Perhaps I sensed in her anger a spirit that had not yet given up or in her inability to speak (even though her eyes spoke volumes) a voice that needed to be heard and needed help to be heard. (I was experiencing similar things in other ways.) Whatever, I had the gift of caring for her until she died, and at her coffin and at her grave the only words that came to me were ‘thank you’ and many tears.

  She helped me experience myself as tender and compassionate and limited. I had to learn how to forgive myself for the many mistakes I made in trying to care for her in the ways that were best for her.

  What a wonderful person came into this house yesterday with thanks.

  Sunday, April 20

  Exactly two months since the stroke.

  I am at the lowest ebb since December thirtieth when the irregular heartbeat meant the start of taking Lanoxin. It is four months since I have felt well and now I am really in despair—I wake in tears. At this point Pierrot can be exasperating—when he makes a strange guttural mew I know that a fury is taking over—and this morning he overturned a heavy pot with an azalea in it that I was nursing back after the fire—and it took me almost a half hour to clean up the mess.

  Later

  For anyone who is for any reason feeling weak in the head it is not advisable to suggest solving a problem that requires choices. Yesterday I spent an hour choosing finally a flowering plum tree, from Wayside Gardens, a birthday gift for Mary Tozer and two white azaleas for Anne Woodson. It sounds pleasurable but was actually the hardest hour I have spent for a long time and I cried at the end.

  It made me remember going to a friend’s from the hospital when I had my tonsils out twenty or more years ago. I felt the same queer sensation in my head as I do now. Then it was from the anaesthetic. This friend gave me a welcome Scotch and then suggested I plan where to plant a lot of bulbs in her garden. It was an ordeal. Then she gave me ham for supper which I couldn’t swallow.

  Tuesday, April 22

  [Anne and Barbara came over for lunch, bearing egg salad sandwiches as, for once, I could not handle going to get lobsters or making a salad. They came because I felt I must bury Bramble’s ashes at last, and we must find a better place for the small soapstone monument Barbara had made for her. We had placed it against the outer terrace wall, but it was covered by snow all winter and I knew we must find a safer, more intimate place, where the plinth with her name and dates engraved on it would not be covered over.

  The day was so warm and pleasant that Anne and Barbara sat outside on the terrace steps and ate their sandwiches there. I stayed inside, completely exhausted after we had found the perfect place for the burial, a small recessed plot Raymond had made for me in a crevice between rocks. Gentians have done well there sometimes, but my tries to grow miniature cyclamen failed completely. Bramble will be the presence there now.

  After lunch when Anne and Barbara came in to get the tiny box of ashes, I knew I could not go out. I panted after taking ten steps. And more than anything else the inability to help bury my beloved cat’s ashes seemed the sign that I was very ill. Later Anne and Barbara told me they thought I was dying. While they worked, and it was a considerable job, I lay down upstairs, not resting, just bearing the painful cramps.

  Meanwhile, Anne and Barbara managed to clear the salt hay off the terrace border and so let some hopeful green shoots breathe.]

  Saturday, April 26

  A very hard week, I felt awfully sick and lived on ginger ale in sips, and eggnogs. [The cramps had become so debilitating that about all I could manage was to wash the breakfast dishes, make the bed and get dressed. Then I simply lay down for the rest of the morning. Finally I decided that I must make a written plea to Dr. Chayka that something be done about the pain. He did not answer and since this had been going on for months I decided that the time had come to find another doctor. I wish I had done so ages ago, for Dr. Gilroy, whom Mary-Leigh Smart had recommended, listened very carefully to the sad tale, arranged for a barium enema the next day, and called me last night to say that what I have is diverticulitis and he expected it to be cured in a week with Metamucil!

  I realized with immense relief that because there had been no diagnosis for four months of great discomfort, I had imagined that I must be dying. This disability had been much harder to handle than the aftermath of the stroke. My left arm and leg are rather weak but it is nothing I cannot manage.

  While I rested this afternoon I slept for a half hour and woke with lines of a poem for Bramble running through my head, with ideas pouring out, with a sense of being myself again that had left me since January when all this hell began.]

  Today I am exhausted, but a reaction was inevitable, I suppose.

  Brad Daziel came at nine with a shovel and three rosebushes for my birthday which he planted there and then. So the rose garden is suddenly rich in promise—it had looked so sad. A gentle damp day, perfect for planting. The daffodils along the woods are out, pushing up through dead leaves. Will it? Can it happen again, I always wonder?

  Yesterday at half past three I was still pretty shaky. Bill Ewert came with the poem “Blizzard” he had printed in a special edition and I signed fifty for him. The generous man left many for me and a set of larger ones on water-color paper I can use for gifts. It’s a lovely present—and the snow poem becomes a charming spring poem due to his imagination.

  Until he came I had felt too tired even to pick daffodils but then on the wave of his friendship I did go out and smelled the delicious damp earthy air.

  On Monday Jamie Hawkins came for a brief visit, only the second time she has been here but we correspond. She is a young person for whom I have the greatest respect.

  Sunday, April 27

  I am out of breath after the slightest effort—couldn’t sleep after one in the morning and put a fat pillow behind me—it did help. After I made my bed and did the chores downstairs I was spent and lay down on my bed and cried.

  Saturday, May 3

  My seventy-fourth birthday and the fifth month of being ill. Cold today—the daffodils out in the field. Every year I wonder whether they will not have been smothered by the heavy grass, but here they are—bright garlands shining in the still gray-colored field—a miracle.

  I am sick and tired of feeling so ill, and of complaining, sick of this old body. Will the electric shock Dr. Petrovich plans set the heart to rights? One more month to wait.

  [A strange birthday, the first since I have lived here when it was not possible to have Anne and Barbara for our traditional lobsters. Only Janice came to cheer me up as it began to rain. As always flowers had been delivered but arranging them was an ordeal rather than a pleasure. Has that ever happened before? It made me feel mean-spirited wh
en so many people wanted to celebrate this birthday and give me joy. But I was, not there, only a stupid sick animal received them.]

  York Hospital, Saturday, May 10

  On waking at six I couldn’t breathe and, finally after coming home from a liver exam at the hospital and trying to rest, I felt I was suffocating. I called Dr. Gilroy and he put me in the hospital. Heaven to be here, taken care of, after a long wait from five to nine before he came to see me. But then I had oxygen and sleep at last. Janice brought me here, and Edythe, always quick to respond in time of need, moved in to take care of Tamas and Pierrot.

  I miss Pierrot! Find myself dreaming of his soft paws and the way he stretches out on his back—such a vulnerable position for a little cat! Edythe is enjoying him and, now the sun is out after two weeks of cold, fog and rain, she must be loving to walk out with Tamas among the daffodils.

  It is strange that I, on the other hand, have no wish to be there now—only relieved to be here, where I can rest with no chores looming, nothing for which I must summon energy.

  Dr. Gilroy took about a pint of fluid out of one lung day before yesterday so I can breathe again.

  Now there are weeks ahead of thinning the blood to prepare for the electric shock Dr. Petrovich intends to try when it is safe. If the blood were not thinned another stroke might be in the cards.

  Pat Keen will arrive from England for a week on May twenty-second. Somehow we’ll manage. I know she will love being here and she knows I’ve become a Venetian glass aunt—if you remember The Venetian Glass Nephew.*