When I took my mother to Emergency because of her odd behaviour, I was expecting a diagnosis of urinary infection. Not so. After several tests, the doctor informed me she had had a small stroke. I knew something was up because while we waited for the results, my mother kept asking me where Taras, her husband, was. I found myself dancing on hot coals, because, of course, Taras had passed away over a year earlier. I kept telling her he would be by soon, but she kept asking the question. Now here I don’t know if I did the right thing, but I pretended to call him on my cell phone and said he was busy but would come to the hospital as soon as he could. I kept hoping she would realize Taras was gone. I didn’t know how she would react to the news. Before she was discharged from the hospital later that night, I asked the doctor for advice, but he was unsure himself and suggested the issue might clear up on its own.

It didn’t. When we arrived home, I dithered around trying to figure out what to do until I bucked up the courage to sit her down, and armed with a copy of Taras’ obituary, I said something like, “You know, Mum, Taras passed away. Do you remember that?” I showed her the obituary. It’s hard to say what came over her face. But it changed, seemed to open up, as the truth dawned on her, a truth which she accepted more calmly than I could have hoped.

We went to bed with me thinking we had gotten over a major obstacle, but little did I know our problems were just beginning.

More next time on the profound effect which that “little” stroke had on her memory.

‘Healing,’ Papa would tell me, ‘is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.’ – W. H. Auden