My grandmother has a stroke. When I go to see her, I’m startled by the telltale signs; the lightly slurred speech, the left side of the face that droops, the loss of mobility in the left arm and leg. Seeing her so changed, makes it apparent that this is real. This has happened. Her system shocked by the trauma, the drugs, the reaction to drugs, seems so frail. I don’t know how to feel or even what to say. I tell her, “I’m so sorry this happened to you.” And I really am. It seems extremely unfair. That night, while lying in bed, I think tearfully, “I’m not ready to have her like this.”
But she is human which means she’s capable of great
change. It means she has the ability that we all do to transform a hard
situation into a new way of being. Most important, what that transformation
looks like is up to her.
Over the next weeks, as I watch her first becoming stabilized at the hospital and then doing her best to retrain the brain and to improve her body in rehab, I find myself thinking again that it’s just unfair for her to have to deal with this at this point in her life. The life that she had before her stroke was one that she seemed to enjoy with its gentle comforts and little exertion. And now here she is having to jumpstart her body and her mind. To push herself, to struggle, to deal with discomfort and pain. She shouldn’t have to do this.
But then I wonder if by hoping something different for her I am trying to cheat her of the fullness of the human experience.
One afternoon, I listen to an interview with Apolo Ohno. Near the end he says, “It is our life to be surrounded by hardship. Not always. But you’re going to be facing it.” And then, “Embrac[e] the fact that change is here and it’s asking you, it’s begging you to actually go toward the flame, it’s begging you to stand up tall, be strong. And to know that this will pass in some shape or form. Whether you get through it and it’s successful or it simply just passes and it fades into a distant memory of your life experiences. One of many hundreds of chapters in your life.”
The hundreds of chapters of experiences make up the book of a life. The flame illuminates what was once dark. The act of standing tall brings confidence. Being strong is a way to understand fear. Still. Hardship is hardship and change is hard. I would wish something else for my grandmother if I could. That’s just part of loving someone. But I wouldn’t wish away from my own life the things that make me grow, transform, or reinvent myself. So, why would I wish away the same treasure for her? Maybe instead, I can hope that through this hardship my grandmother will find her own purpose within it.
No matter what I hope or wish, for now, change is here. The pathway through this experience for my grandmother may be uneven and rocky. But sometimes on the other side of hardship is something good, even if that’s only the comfort of having survived. Sometimes on the other side of change is something beautiful; a sense of accomplishment, an overcoming, a reimagining, a new outlook. There’s no doubt it’s hard. But if my grandmother, even in this unfair moment of life, is going in search of something like that, I know she’ll find it.
And then, as all things do, this also will pass.
