After the Stroke (2 page)

Bramble always came in at night by climbing the wisteria vine to my bedroom window, often very late at night when I would see her shadow sitting there patiently, waiting for me to open the door to the porch roof, as I could not take the window screen down. She then ran along and jumped across to the porch roof and in. In spring and fall when the screen was off, she jumped straight from the sill to my bed in a lovely leap.

I thought a little later, knowing she could never get well, that the time had come to have her put to sleep, but Dr. Beekman examined her carefully and said, “Let her have another week or so.” And so for a last week or two it was a long farewell as she lay full length along my back and purred often half the night. Bramble was always close to the wilderness, the last of the “wild cats” of Nelson, elusive, aloof, but in the end extremely loving.

But when her eye began to look infected again and was closed tightly I decided that we must put her out of her pain and Dr. Beekman assured me that I was right this time. She was lying on her side, perfectly passive, but the right eye so huge with fear, black to its gold rim, so deep and clear, I felt I had never seen such terrible beauty. Dr. Beekman treated her with tenderness, stroked her, called her by name, and then managed to get the needle in with such expertise that she never moved, and in a few seconds she was gone.

Nancy and I were crying so hard we had to wait a moment before driving away and coming home to the desolation here. I often heard Nancy talking her special language to Bramble when she walked Tamas, for Bramble went along, dashing up a tree, bounding through the long grasses like a black and gold leopard. Nancy had loved her too.

Not only the house, but the whole landscape seemed empty, for I often looked out from my study window to see way off down the field that intent black presence waiting for a mouse. Now there was no sign of life. But the worst was going to bed, waking often, thinking she would be at the window, then when I remembered, unable to sleep.]

The grief never left me for weeks. Suddenly I would start to cry and then not be able to stop. What ran through my head was, “this is the beginning of the end.” We had been, Tamas, Bramble and I, a little family, and now it had been decimated. Who next? Tamas is so very lame these days and I had been feeling exhausted and ill.

On December twenty-eighth the Christmas tree caught fire—in one second a towering blazing holocaust, black smoke so thick it stifled me as I grabbed a fire extinguisher, calling out to my guest, Judy Burrowes, “Call the fire department! I must stay here and put it out.” And that I did, running upstairs to get the second extinguisher when the flames flared up again. Finally when the fire was out the volunteer fire department roared up with an ambulance all ready to take me to the hospital! They were astonished.

The miracle was that the books which are in recessed bookcases in the library, all my own books bound in leather among them, were not damaged except by smoke—but of course it made a frightful mess and took weeks of work to set right—workmen washing the walls, wiping down everywhere: the painters repainting, a new wall-to-wall carpet put down. I couldn't get the saffron yellow of the old one; the new one is rather tame by comparison! Luckily insurance covered most of the damage, including twenty-three hundred dollars to bring the
bahut
back to life.

On December thirtieth I saw my doctor, hoping to get help on the constant intestinal cramps I had suffered on the tour. Instead he discovered congestive heart failure, a fibrillating heart, and put me on drugs to try to get the heartbeat back to normal. The drugs made me really ill—impossible to work—and I had to cancel a spring tour altogether. The cramps became so painful I lay down most of the day, but Dr. Chayka paid no attention to that when I complained.

Then on February twentieth I woke in the middle of the night terrified as I felt as though a numb, perhaps dead, arm were strangling me. It was actually my own left arm. I could not extricate myself. Finally I did manage to and got up—with great difficulty, and staggered about. I knew something was wrong, but went back to bed. At six I called Nancy and asked her to come, went down to let Tamas out as usual, forced myself to make breakfast, carried the tray up to bed, but couldn't eat it. Then I called Janice, my dear friend who is an R.N., and said, “I think I have had a small stroke.” She was very firm. “Call your doctor. Get the ambulance—I'll be right over.”

It was a great relief when I knew help was on the way. I even managed to pack a small suitcase to be ready, but I could not dress. My left side felt very queer and dead.

Nancy and Janice were both here by the time the ambulance and its two sleepy attendants arrived, and they followed us to the hospital.

What a relief to know I would be taken care of! It had been a hard night's journey into day.

Then followed six days of tests and confabulations. The CAT scan showed a small hemorrhage of the brain—perhaps a clot thrown out by the irregular heartbeat. Then I came home, lucky indeed to be able to speak and take care of myself—the telephone my lifeline. Janice came for one week to get supper and stay the night. Maggie Vaughan came for one week and got all the meals—and then I was alone here again.

It was a
mild
stroke, thank heavens. But what neither I nor my supportive friends could quite realize is how strange one feels—and how depressed—after even a slight stroke—that is what I have been learning slowly for seven weeks.

The absence of psychic energy is staggering. I realize how much it takes to write one line. And I have tried in vain, over and over, to write a poem for Bramble and wept with frustration because poetry is not in me. Will it ever come back? Shall I ever feel whole again?

[Two weeks ago something extraordinary and wonderful happened. I must have mentioned to Carol Heilbrun that if I ever could choose a cat—all of mine have been strays—it would be a Himalayan. She had inquired around and found a four-month-old male kitten and had brought him to me, all the way from New York City. Of course when he finally got here far from his mother and brothers, having been penned up for hours, his one idea was to get away as fast as possible and hide. But before he did so I had picked him up and nuzzled the soft fur on his tummy, and had seen his snub nose, his huge blue eyes and his coloring, slate blue face, ears and paws and the rest a creamy white. His paws are huge and very soft. Well, he was indeed a great beauty, but when I went to bed he was nowhere to be found and I wondered and waited and must have finally fallen asleep, for when I woke up before light, I found he was lying on my head and had been there no doubt for most of the night. That was a good sign.

A kitten? At first a hurricane would have been the word. For the first two weeks I was woken at dawn by the sound of a large life-sized stuffed lamb in my bedroom being knocked over, and strange raucous miaows from deep in the kitten's throat as he attacked the beast with claw and tooth, tearing at its tail and ears, then suddenly flinging himself downstairs and racing around the house.

Before he came I had decided to name him Pierrot, “mon ami Pierrot,” as he is called in the old song my mother sang to me when I was a baby:

Au clair de la lune,

Mon ami Pierrot,

Prête-moi ta plume

Pour écrire un mot.

Ma chandelle est morte

Je n'ai plus de feu.

Ouvre-moi ta porte

Pour l'amour de Dieu.

He had certainly come into my life at a desolate time, when “my candle was out.” But at first he did seem in his violence a little too much for me, especially the day after Carol brought him and she had left. For he simply vanished for seven hours, and I did not dare call Carol to see she was safely home until after dark when he suddenly appeared from nowhere and gave a plaintive mew.

That was the beginning and now after two weeks we are semi-friends, routines have been established, and perhaps he and Carol are responsible for my turning the corner at last, and able to begin a new journal.]

Friday, April 11

It is still cold and dreary here, although treasures are humping up under the salt hay on the flower beds and maybe by next week I can release them into sunlight. The more miraculous it was, then, in the cold rain, to find yesterday in the mail a tiny box from Duffy in Connecticut containing four sprigs of arbutus, the waxy perfect pink flowers sending out a whiff of that nonesuch perfume—my nose could hardly believe it!

There was also a cassette from a composer, Emma Lou Diemer, at the University of California at Santa Barbara, a recording of her composition for my poem “Invocation”—at its first performance. It was beautiful although the words did not come through, but the musical atmosphere was just right.

At four this morning Pierrot snuggled up under my hand, butting his head into my palm, and lay there purring very loudly—a sweet way to start this day.

He is a ravishing sight, a fluffy white extravaganza and his large, very soft floppy paws suggest that he will become a huge cat.

Saturday, April 12

Frost on the grass this morning.

Pierrot decided at four that it was time for a wild tear, up and down and roundabout without stopping for an hour—sliding the scatter rugs under the bed, thumping loudly, scrambling in and out of the bath. At such times his eyes are red; he is a
violent
spirit, a land of fury and sometimes makes a hoarse, loud, ugly miaow of rage. So by five when it was time to let Tamas out I was tired, but I did get an hour's sleep before I got up at six-thirty and now the sun is out.

It is nine-fifteen. I have done a laundry and cleaned out a big drawer in the kitchen which was full of mouse dirt, a horrid job, and I'm glad to get it off my mind.

When I came home from the hospital after the stroke the daily chores seemed insuperable. Making my bed left me so exhausted that I lay down on it at once for an hour. I realized that I had always hurried through the chores in order to get up here to my desk as fast as possible—it felt strange not to be pressured for the first time since I moved here fourteen years ago—and I tried to learn from it, to learn to take the chores as an exercise, deliberately slowing down, savoring the smoothing of a sheet, the making of order as delightful in itself—not just something to get out of the way.

Often when I lay in bed after my breakfast which I take up on a tray, the light shone through the stained glass phoenix Karen Saum had had made for my seventieth birthday. It always felt like a good augury to watch it glow, blue and red.

Perhaps the phoenix can only begin to rise from its embers when it has reached the very end, death itself. With Bramble's death I felt the wilderness die in me, some secret place where poetry lived. She was so wild—passionate and distant at the same time. When Pierrot comes so easily to be petted early in the morning I remember that it took five years for Bramble to creep up from the end of the bed and lie in the crook of my arm. But then the bond was very deep.

The hardest thing for me to give up after the stroke was writing to Juliette Huxley. Forty years ago we were intimate friends, but time and change intervened, misunderstanding broke the bond, and only now in these last months has she opened the door—and we are communicating again at last. She is eighty-nine. Time is running out—and the frustration of being unable to keep the slight thread intact between us is very hard to bear.

So I made up a dream of flying over to England in June and taking her to a country inn for a few days where we could talk instead of writing. That was the final thing I realized I had to give up. I'm not well enough, and she has had several bouts with flu and herself hesitated to come.

I spent a sleepless night trying to accept that I shall probably never see her again—that was the death of the spirit, the end of dreaming impossible dreams. Strangely enough, the next day I began this journal, and knew that my real self was coming back.

Sunday, April 13

At last a real spring day, brilliant sun, no wind, the ocean murmuring or rather roaring gently in the distance. It made me remember that when I first came here I often thought I heard a train going by—but it was the ocean, not passing through, always to be there.

Having a disability has one good effect. I am far more aware of and sympathetic about the illnesses some of my friends are struggling to surmount than I was when I was well. It is companionable to share some of the day-to-day triumphs and despairs. I'm afraid terribly cheerful, well people are no help at all!

I am aware for the first time perhaps what courage it takes to grow old, how exasperating it is no longer to be able to do what seemed nothing at all even a year ago.

And I am learning some of the things
not
to say to a person who has had a stroke. It's a good idea not to seem to expect great improvement. “Are you feeling better?” when there is no chance that the person addressed
can
feel better quickly. For instance: work. Several people suggested I keep a journal—in the first weeks after February twentieth. This caused me to shout and weep. “I can't write a
line
! I'm not myself and shan't be for a long time.” It felt like cruelty—like saying to a cripple in a wheelchair, “it will do you good to take a walk.”(!)

A month ago writing a few lines in this book would have been impossible. Will simply had no effect. I had to give up doing anything fast. And the worst has been to have poetry dead inside me—not a line runs through my head.

I have not been able to listen to music at all since early January—perhaps because it has been so closely connected with poetry. I don't dare, for fear of breaking into pieces.

Monday, April 14

Warm sun and a calm blue sea. Maggie Thomas is here raking leaves along the fence. At eight I got out the rakes, the wheelbarrow, fertilizer and put lime around some of the clematis—but when she got here—such a help!—I was done in as though after a full day of outdoor work. It is so frustrating!