A Stroke of Insight: The Education of Aging

Slouched in a chair next to a synthetic, dusty hibiscus, I sat impatiently in the Lincoln Surgical Hospital’s ophthalmology waiting room. I waited – waited to see my mom, waited to say hello to my grandma, waited to go back to my dorm room… waited for anything other than what I was actually waiting for. Then Grandma rolled him through the door. Hunched over in his wheelchair, a trail of slobber linking the corner of his mouth to his shoulder, my grandfather came through the door in the useless shell of his body. There sat the man who drove my school’s bus to countless school events throughout my life, who endlessly championed the achievements of his family, who led a community through his involvement and service, who I saw as the ultimate patriarch. There sat the man who hasn’t been the same since Dec. 9, 2008. Nor have I.

Growing up, my grandma Jeannie and my grandpa Don never lived more than two miles from my home. They are my mother’s parents, and their guidance, support and love have always been a constant part of my life. But Grandpa was always my hero. Evening rides in the back of his rusty, green truck, daily jaunts to a nearby pasture to feed carrots to the horses I would never have, lullabies of Lead Belly’s “Rock Island Line” and Arthur Fields’ “Abba Dabba Honeymoon” are the most poignant memories of my childhood. He let me and my sisters call him “Crappy.” He sat at the bottom of his crimson-carpeted basement stairs for hours as I rolled plastic fruit down the banister into the ancient strawberry box in his hands. Don was a man so strong that I barely noticed his triple bypass heart surgery or the subsequent recovery that came with it. And as I grew older he became my confidant. He knew how to make me feel better when I was down, and I learned how to react to him and calm him down as my eight-year-old cousin vomited in the back seat of his new Cadillac on the way to Wisconsin. Despite our almost 50-year age gap, my grandpa and I understood each other better than most people.

Now comes the painful acceptance that I’m writing about him in the past tense. I’m writing about a man who is very much alive. On Dec. 9, 2008, Donald Leon Coupe suffered a severe hemorrhagic stroke. I remember the sobering call well, “Sarah, Grandpa had a stroke this morning. He’s in Omaha. The doctors are running tests now.” After my mom hung up, I sat on my bed in my dorm, studying for finals, unable to fully grasp what exactly was going on. A family friend had had a stroke merely a few weeks before, and he was fine. A few hours later she called back, “You need to come to Omaha. We’re at Bergen Mercy. Bring clothes for a couple of days.” Nothing could have prepared me for those days. Nothing could have prepared me for a comatose Don, family arriving from all over the country, discussions about life support, realizing that my cousins weren’t brave enough to see my grandpa in that state and the personal revelation that Grandpa knew we were in the room. The adults stood in the hallway mulling over what needed to be done. They whispered gravely about decisions that controlled my grandfather’s future – risk him living a half life for years in a coma, see if he would come through or give up? All things medical pointed to giving up; little hope remained. And as they tried to shield me from the conversations I knew were happening, I watched my grandfather sit perfectly still with his right arm limp at his side; but slowly his pointer finger met his thumb and tapped it silently over and over again. It was a greeting he had given me and my sisters for as long as I can remember. Trapped somewhere in an almost paralyzed body was my grandpa. He woke up the next day, left side fully paralyzed, unable to move much and unable to speak at all. From there he started his very long road to some type of recovery.

I spent a large portion of the next five months in hospitals. As Don recovered at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Lincoln, I became the closest family member in proximity to my grandparents. I learned to navigate that hospital like a pro, often spending hours there just keeping my grandmother company. But making that trip was always a struggle, because I knew the unfamiliar awaited me. Behind the curtain in that sanitary, white-washed hospital room laid a man who now possessed a brick wall that presented a constant challenge in communication. What started as 30 minute quests to finally guess that Grandpa wanted the fan on, slowly turned into three minute guessing games that became routine – “Do you need to use the rest room? Do you want the light off? Should I just wait for Grandma to get back?” And through all the grunting, pointing and one finger for yes two for no, I sometimes guessed correctly. I would tell him about my day, hold his hand and then not know quite what to do. There are only so many yes or no questions a person can ask. And silence is fine, but the forced silence makes me uncomfortable – a type of discomfort that lingers. It hasn’t gone away.

Over time the bond I shared with my grandpa slackened, but I still went. My visits became less and less about catching up with my grandfather and more about keeping my grandma company and helping her in any way that I could. Often, assisting her came in the form of tube feeding him into his stomach, doing physical therapy, readjusting him, and cleaning phlegm out of his throat. I was forced to learn and to push my boundaries much farther than I would have liked. A person afraid of doctors, needles and medicine, I had a fear that started sometime early in my childhood, which had never faded. Suddenly I was talking to RNs, med-techs, specialists, speech pathologists, occupational therapists and CNAs; and I didn’t know what any of them did. I had to learn. Each person who entered the room was new. Each person took a new level of understanding. In the course of days, I went from being someone who avoided hospitals at all costs to someone who was immersed in medical knowledge.

I learned valuable things as I spent time at the hospital; however, the things I learned were not nearly as important to me as the bond that started to grow between me and my grandmother. I never knew my grandma to have a job, and I never knew her without some type of malady. But watching her rise to the occasion of taking care of my grandfather during rehabilitation and afterward when he went home is one of the most inspirational things that has happened in my life. Visiting my grandpa became more about helping my grandma with errands, taking her to eat and getting to know who she was behind all of the orthopedic shoes and rosaries. As my ability to communicate with my grandfather dissipated, the bond between me and my grandmother grew. I came to see her not only as my caring grandmother but also as a strong woman with even stronger convictions, who silenced her concerns for her own health in order to fully commit herself to the type of caring my grandfather needed. All those years that I thought my grandpa was doing things for my grandma because she couldn’t, I was wrong. He was doing them because he loved her, and now she does the same for him. My sisters and I started secretly to refer to the little things she does for him daily as “miracles” that will get her to sainthood. I’m incredibly thankful for the opportunity to get to know my grandma better. But the joy that comes from being closer to my grandma leaves a bitter taste in my moth when I remember why I know her so well now; because what I want to remember, what I can’t help but remember is the way things used to be – Christmases retrieving beer from the basement for Grandpa, his sure and steady footsteps as he power-walked through school hallways at speech meets, taunting the seals at the Henry Doorly Zoo.

I sat around a table in late July with various loud members of my extended family, and together we cried and then laughed till we cried as we recounted the endless stories about my grandpa – how he and my grandma dropped everything when her sister miscarried a baby from a marriage that few people approved of just to be there for her, when no one else would, or how on every family vacation one of his children or grandchildren would manage to get sick in route. We could have reminisced for days, weeks even. But instead we reminisced as we put off telling my grandma why we were really gathered there – to tell her that Grandpa needed to go to the nursing home … that she couldn’t take care of him alone.

It’s truly astonishing what people can learn from one another when they are forced to look at a situation honestly. Who will be there when there are no easy answers? Who will take responsibility when there is so much to be had? Who will give their time when there is none to spare? I learned a lot about my family members in the last year, a lot about who they are when the gloves come off. I learned how they got there as they told stories about the “good old days.” I learned my family history. In a way, we all had to do some type of recovery. We still are. For both my grandpa and my family, recovery does not mean going back to where we were. Neither he nor we are ever going to get there. Instead, it’s about finding normalcy, even a new normalcy. Things that are now normal – dreading the seemingly meaningless moments I share with my hero, giving my grandma a little more respect for the things that she does, finding little humor in stroke jokes and thinking about the future in a whole new way.

In a world full of the glorification of youth, fear of the elderly and an attitude of focusing on one’s self, it’s pretty easy to lose sight of the big picture – the spectrum of life. Whether from fear, disinterest or ignorance, a lack of communication and the ability to relate have wedged themselves in between the elderly and the young. For me, it has always been fear – fear of the unknown, fear of not knowing what to say, fear of change. Listening to my mother chastise me for years about remaining silent during visits to my great-grandmother in the nursing home makes me certain that this fear is not unique to my grandfather, but it is ever present. The truth is, it’s scary. It’s scary to know that you’re losing touch with someone you love very much. It’s scary to think that it might be the last time you see him or her. It’s scary to face someone with the guilt of your fear. It’s one giant dose of reality.

Spending time with elderly people, whether they be family members or not, is an incredibly important part of life. It creates opportunity for a completely unique form of learning that is only acquired through experience. Too often I think young people look at the elderly and think, “What could they possibly have to teach me?” It’s a type of ignorance that comes from questioning authority and arrogance that comes from discovering the world – two things that people have gained for centuries as a part of coming of age. But that same ignorance and arrogance will limit them and bind them to a close-minded outlook on life. What they don’t understand is the fact that it’s not about what the elderly have to teach; it’s about what we can learn from them.

In a way, aging must be considered from infancy until death. The people on either side of the spectrum are the ones who need us most. We innately have a responsibility to care for those who can not care for themselves, and as we neglect them we neglect ourselves and one another. From adolescence, people strive to gain autonomy, a type of freedom that one can only earn through years of fighting away the dependence that has been thrust upon them from birth. Then, without warning they come to a point where they are asked to give up the freedom that has become their lifeblood – settle down, have a family and restart the cycle. Lose your autonomy. Similarly, this age brings about the need for people to give back to those on whom they depended. The dependent must become the provider. Lose your autonomy. We are asked to give up the one thing we have fought most for. But in doing so, we can gain infinitely more. Not only do our dependents need us, but also we need them. “The children are the future.” This saying has been thrown around for years, and it’s easy enough to see that it’s true. So, are the elderly our past? If so, they are just as much a part of our future. A healthy relationship with the elderly allows us to gage ourselves in preparation for our futures. The elderly act as virtual, wrinkled and silvering soothsayers of our destinies.

While sitting with my family in late July, I learned about my family history. But I learned much, much more than that. I learned about overcoming hardship. I learned about supporting people. I learned about the future – what I could one day become. To tell you the truth, being on fraction of the person either of my grandparents are would be a privilege. My relationship with my grandparents, relationships with the elderly in general teach us about life. And these lessons are integral because we need to know more than what the simple experiences of our own lives can teach us. We owe it to ourselves to take an active role in the lives of the elderly.