Finding beauty on the other side of a stroke

At the end of August, my Father, Jeffrey, had a stroke. Here’s the story: At 4 am PT, my phone started

ringing. I was getting a call from Kobi, my older brother. To be honest, even then it felt weird to me to hear my phone ring since it is always on silent. Before even answering, I knew it couldn’t have been a good thing, but then, once I did, I was immediately greeted by Kobi saying that we have a family phone call. Now, in some families, family phone calls are cute. In mine, they mean something serious.

The last time my phone rang for an impromptu family phone call, it was Saturday night, in October of 2019. I was visiting Ezra, my younger brother, and a few friends from college, in the city (NYC, not SF). We were all hanging out - a couple drinks in - with the rest of our evening ahead of us. We planned on dropping by another friend’s apartment downtown, and then maybe hitting up a bar in the later hours (back when that was a thing). As I’m sitting in my friend’s apartment, just shmoozing, Ezra comes in and says “Shai, family phone call.” My friend immediately reacted with “awww, so cute” to which I responded, “Not in our family.” My mother was calling to tell us that my grandmother had passed away. Well, that was a bummer. For another time, I can tell the story about how the night played out, and Ezra and I missed our flight the next morning (only flight I’ve ever missed) and barely made it back to Atlanta in time for the funeral.

Anyway, impromptu Weener family phone call = bad. When you get a call like that when you have living grandparents, your mind immediately goes to them. Alas, at 4 in the morning, as I’m laying in bed, basically still sleeping, my mom tells us that my dad had a stroke. She didn’t know any other details other than he was alive and she would call later with information. She also included a lot of medical jargon to describe what was going on. To be honest, I’m genuinely surprised that I didn’t understand all of the jargon. I’ve watched all of Grey’s anatomy. Twice. Doesn’t that essentially make me a doctor? All those hours on my medical education were clearly wasted. The medical explanation of what happened might as well have been greek. Regardless, after hearing he had a stroke, my first thought was that my dad was going to be a turnip. In medical shows, the patients that suffer from strokes either come out immediately with no deficits, or are full vegetables. After hundreds upon hundreds of hours watching medical shows, the fact that my mom didn’t say he was fine led me to assume the worst.

Now, everyone in my family handles things differently. Ezra is the stereotypical googler. For the next 8 hours, I fielded calls from Ezra probably every 45 minutes - each one to tell me about something else he had learned from google. In the middle of playing basketball, he called me to tell me that he looked up the likelihood of a recurrence of a stroke in patients whose doctors couldn’t remove the clot. He called me again while walking home from said basketball to tell me that he looked into the effectiveness of blood thinners to surpass that. He also called me 10 other times that day to tell me about things I was too tired to pay attention to. To be honest, I spent half the day asleep. I had been woken up at 4, and every time I was almost asleep, I got woken up by another medical fact that just reaffirmed that, in fact, I am not a doctor, no matter how much time I spend watching medical shows.

Aviva snapping a pic with Jeff

Fast forward to the next morning and my mom told me I could facetime my dad for the first time. The second I hopped on the call I was relieved. In this first conversation, he basically only repeated like five words, and he spent a lot of the time crying, but it was clear that he wasn’t repeating five words because he could only comprehend the content of five words. His mind had full sentences and thoughts and feelings. The stroke had affected the process by which his brain vocalized these words (or something along these lines) so at the time, though he was trying to say full sentences, it came out really as a combination of these five words. As difficult as it was, I was relieved. I could still recognize him as the same Jeff.

First time Facetiming with Jeff

That thought was only reinforced when, just a few days later, I called him at his intensive care facility. By this conversation, he was up to about 30 words, and ready to jump back into intense conversation. He asked me about where I wanted to live later in life, and I told him it depended on what the landscape of Jewish communities is like. There aren’t so many Jewish communities in America that balance the level of commitment to Judaism and community that I want, while also reflecting my values and views of women’s roles in the community. We proceeded to have a 20 minute conversation about the nuances within Jewish communities, how the Jewish communities we know now are going to change rapidly, and how we will not only see shifting, but also merging and diverging of groups. I do have to admit, of this 20 minute conversation, I probably only understood the first 12 minutes of it (at some point, it was hard to follow who we were talking about. In this conversation, every noun was ‘kid’ so there became a point where I couldn’t tell whether we were talking about people’s actual children? People themselves? Rabbis? Friends? Future generations? Who knows.) What was clear to me, however, was that my dad still felt like my dad in a lot of ways. And that was nice. And felt lucky. In my mind, all I could hope for was the exact same Jeff to come out of the stroke. Whether possible or not, that thought was and is thinking a bit too far ahead. My dad hadn’t even returned home yet, and we were all recognizing that the next few months weren’t going to be easy. It was going to be a full family affair.

Jeff's first time returning to Minyan

The plan was simple, Ezra would fly home first to coincide with when my father returned home from the hospital. A few days later, Kobi and Stacey would join for about two weeks. The day after Kobi and Stacey leave, Savyon and I would take over. Ezra would leave after a couple weeks and we would stay through thanksgiving (so a solid 10 weeks). I didn’t necessarily expect to be the only one staying so long, but with COVID and travel restrictions, that’s how it played out. Regardless, the plan meant I had to sit on my thumbs in California for three weeks before flying home, and it was quite difficult to live my life here while my entire family was together in crisis mode.

I knew why I was staying in California. I had to keep reminding myself: the purpose was to spread out the help. To not overwhelm my parents. But it was hard not to feel like I should have been there. So, I did what any slightly emotionally hardened individual does when they are put in a situation they can’t control: I removed the thought of Atlanta from my mind. Outside of a brief call with my dad every day, and a quick check in with my mom in the evenings, I went along with my business as usual - I worked, I hung out with my roommates, and met up with friends for outside walks. But, in random moments, it made me feel even guiltier how easy it was to just pretend like nothing was going on. How could I be hanging out with my roommates, having a fun shabbat dinner and movie nights, all while my entire family was together during such a tough time?

Working on his speech therapy

Not to worry, a few weeks later, Savyon and I arrived in Atlanta. After a number of days staying in our friends basement to quarantine, and sending my family a fake positive covid test just for shits and giggles, we joined my parents and Ezra. And, for the next 2 months (with a minor break in the middle), Savyon and I were home in Atlanta. We took my father to and from his therapy twice a week. We (mostly Savyon) cooked dinner for the fam. We (mostly Savyon) helped my dad with his speech therapy homework. And we just spent time with the family in a way that I haven’t been able to do since High School.

Now, this is where the story ends, and my reflection begins.

First and foremost, it is quite crazy to think back to what my father was like three months ago, and where he is today. Look, he has a long journey ahead of him, but the beauty of it is that he is able to be on that journey and we are able to experience it with him. We get to be present for the constant excitement as he is able to say new words, or understand an email, or craft a full text to a friend. I also feel lucky because I don’t write this blog post in a world separate from my father. I was actually able to read this to him before posting it to get his approval. And though I sometimes had to repeat sentences and speak slower than usual (which is an issue unrelated to the stroke), I was able to share this with him and talk about it, and that is progress that I try not to take for granted.

Looking back to when we first arrived. It was our first night in the house. My father walked by me, placed a three pound rock in my hand, and without any acknowledgement, just kept walking. No words. No explanation. Just handed me a plain rock with no engraving or any indication of importance. A few minutes later, when he returned, I asked him about it and he looked at the rock and went “oh! I got from the person. The person who you know. You know. The person. Down the street.” Though it took multiple sets of twenty questions, I figured out that one of his friends had given him this rock at some point in time. I had no idea why he had been given the rock, or why he had given it to me, but I don’t think there was a clear reason. This rock was something special to him because he got it from a friend, and he wanted to share it with me. Though at the time I kind of chuckled and rolled my eyes a bit (read: a lot), it was the first moment that I noticed there was something different about my father.

Watching birthday videos sent by friends and family

At face value, the things that appear to be different are very much related to language - in both difficult and hilarious ways. In September, he was telling the rabbi about baking challah. This was during a phase that, whenever he talked about challah, he used the verb “cook” and the noun “food,” and sometimes combined words accidentally. So, while talking to the Rabbi, on Yom Kippur, at shul, three times he discussed "fooking." I simultaneously cringed and died of laughter. On the flip side, you could ask him what temperature he wanted his food served at, he would say hot, and when it showed up hot, you’d realize that he meant cold.

What I will say, though, is that my father’s changes go much deeper, and in some honestly beautiful ways. When I think back to that initial hope of getting back my father exactly as the Jeff he was before, it reflects this misconception I had that my father after a stroke couldn’t possibly be better or have improved. But if there is anything that 10 weeks at home taught me, it’s that I shouldn’t have been so quick to make that assumption. The Jeff that is coming out of the stroke is not the same Jeff as before, but I would say there are many ways that this difference reflects a positive change. My dad has always been kind, and warm, and welcoming; but for the first time, I see someone who lacks inhibition in his ability to just be goofy and find the positive outlook so genuinely. One night, as a family, we were playing this card game where you have to match pictures. His speech therapist said, as part of the game, we should ask him to identify what all the pictures are. He was able to identify a heart pretty easily, though saying the word out loud was a bit difficult. Eventually, one of the cards showed a crescent moon and he just looked at it and exclaimed “banana!” I mean, I guess it’s close enough. But, when it came to one figure he couldn’t identify, after trying and trying to figure it out, he just exclaimed “Green shit!” So matter of fact, and unashamed, he broke into a hysterical laughter. I don’t think I had ever seen my dad laugh so hard in my life. But he was just enjoying life so much, and found it so funny, that all of us eventually broke out into hysterical laughter as well.

At one point, my dad and I were talking about a menu, and he used the word potato when he meant salad. When I corrected him, he looked directly at me, and with a slight shrug, responded “Potato, banana, same thing” and walked away with this witty smile on his face.

A story that I’ve shared before is that, a couple weeks back, Savyon and I were doing a workout video in the basement. When my father came downstairs, we joked with him that he should join us. He has absolutely no upper body strength right now (not that he’s ever really had upper body strength) so he wasn’t going to lift weights with us, but when invited to join, he just started to dance along to the music. I have known my dad to be many things, but a dancer was never one of them. I don’t know if I recall ever seeing him dance before, but, in this moment, he danced so freely, in such a goofy way, that I was actually a bit jealous. Life is hard, and it takes him 20 minutes to write happy birthday on someone’s wall on facebook, but somehow, my father makes jokes like never before. He also appreciates people so vocally and honestly, it’s quite touching. To be honest, it’s quite annoying sometimes, but also sweet. We can be walking down the street and pass a friend, and rather than just say hello, he starts thanking them for a gift they gave us 10 years ago when they stayed at our house for shabbat once, and then proceeds to tell me how they are the greatest people ever. In his mind, so many people right now are the greatest or the nicest or the friendliest people of all time. And he means every word.

First park day

It’s impossible to know what changes come physiologically from having a stroke, and which come from such a difficult and life threatening experience, but my dad is definitely changed in a way that I would argue makes him even better than the original (Don’t worry, Dad, you were always great. Except for when I was in High School. I did not like you for the first half of that. But that could be more about me than about you.) The part of Jeff that wants to hear how everyone else is, be there as a supportive friend, and talk about the challenges of living life in today’s world, is completely still there. With his current language struggles and his current propensity to monologue, that’s a bit difficult. But being that person is still at his core and he is working very hard to get there again, but now there is such a deeper appreciation for the people around him.

What I think is important to note, here, is that a big part of this realization and reflection comes from being able to have some distance and do some independent processing. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t roll my eyes every time he thanked a friend for a pitcher they gave him 14 years ago, or when we’d go on a walk and he’d want to stop at every house where we knew someone, which is legitimately 50% of the houses in our neighborhood. I would also be lying if I said that the positives totally overshadow any of the struggles - for him or for my mom or for us - and that there weren’t moments in Atlanta that were so difficult and frustrating, that we all felt pretty defeated. But, as I write this, and as I reflect on what 2 months at home was like, the point of this post isn’t to depict exactly what it was like with both the good and the bad. The point is to highlight that, beyond face value, there are some beautiful things to come from this really difficult situation.

As a nice (read: dark) story to end off on, a couple months back, my father and I were walking home on Shabbat when he took a bit of a tumble and fell down a hill - totally messing up his ankle. At first, he insisted we would be fine to walk home, but he soon realized how badly he had hurt his ankle. So, in his 6-weeks-into-the-stroke language, he turned to me and, in a matter of fact tone, told me, verbatim, “If disaster, and I die. Just push me over” signaling to the side of the road “don’t want to be in the way.” And though I was thinking of saying something corny like “Dad, you’re never in the way,” that would just be straight up lying. So I merely responded with a laugh and said “sounds good.”