Memoir’s author rides wild horse of memory
Stroke survivor’s tale tackles weighty topic with great humour, writes Gary Geddes.
Two years ago my father-in-law had a stroke. One day he was fine, talkative, alert and chuffed by his recent prowess at the curling rink. The next morning, he began to talk gibberish and was rushed to the hospital. Several small strokes ensued. He never recovered his ability to explain what was going on inside during those heartbreaking final days. Even his wife, a trained nurse, knew little about the workings of a brain shattered by stroke. If we had read Ron Smith’s The Defiant Mind: Living Inside A Stroke, I think we might all have responded differently.
The cover painting, Jack Shadbolt’s Bursting Orb, perfectly evokes the central message of this important literary memoir, that a stroke is not just about physical damage, loss of speech, motor skills, even the capacity to swallow; it’s equally, or perhaps more importantly, about what is happening in and to the mind that experiences such trauma.
“Was that really me speaking I wondered. If it was my voice, it sounded a lot like an old 78 phonograph record spinning at 33 1/3 r.p.m. The words rolled and bounced around the room like tumbleweed blown on a desert wind. They had no traction, no weight, no body. No meaning. And yet they seemed heavy and thick at the same time. Like toffee or treacle.”
Smith’s sense of humour and gift of metaphor makes this frightening journey into uncharted waters not only instructive, but also very engaging, a work that everyone should read, not only because a quarter of us will suffer a stroke by the age of 80, or be closely associated with someone who has, but also because it’s so damn well written.
This book documents loss, confusion, grief and longing, but it’s also about a determination to understand the cognitive damage suffered and how that understanding might be crucial to whatever healing and recovery are possible. What seems to Smith the most reliable compass for rediscovering who he is or was turns out to be memory. This is no pleasant stroll down memory lane. Instead, with his body halfparalyzed and senses hyper-alert, Smith rides the wild horse of memory, hanging on for dear life, grabbing hold of unexpected moments from his past, patching together what he can of a lost identity.
As a writer, this must have seemed to Smith very much like the creative process itself. What he has achieved in this epic endeavour is no small miracle; indeed, it’s a tribute to the human will and imagination.
Every stroke is different, Smith insists, all the more reason why attention needs to be paid to what is happening to the mind whose “executive function” has been damaged. “No one appeared to be the least bit interested in my mental state of being. No one asked what my thoughts were or where they led. No one questioned me about the landscape and atmosphere of the stroke world. No one wanted to know its secrets.” Happily, with the help of this beautiful, moving and resourceful book, all that could begin to change.
Ron Smith has re-learned how to speak, write, walk, even swallow his favourite treat — apple sauce — but the one thing he refuses to swallow is the idea of giving up.