A decade ago today, my mother had a stroke. Her first stroke. She was at a Super Bowl Party with my Dad, and got a terrible headache. Such a bad, terrible headache that she asked to lie down in a guest bedroom of the host where the party was being held. Luckily my dad knew the symptoms - and she was at the hospital within twenty minutes.
He saved her life.
The next day was one of the hardest I can remember. It was snowing here on the East Coast, and my mother was having brain surgery - a 10-hour operation - while we waited. To hear if she would be able to speak, to move; how bad was the damage?
In the end, it took three years, but she physically came back. She was able to walk, and talk. But it did impact her brain. We thought she had dementia - she tested positive for Alzheimer’s - and then we learned that actually the stroke had just permanently altered her executive functions. She didn’t have dementia, she had brain damage.
Ten years later, both she and my Dad are gone.
February is a hard month, and it just gets harder every year. It has a lot of death anniversaries, and even the skies cry.
But I love you always, Mom. And I’m so proud of how hard you worked to come back to us.
I miss you always.