Fellow survivor! Strokes do have a way of taking away what we take for granted. However, I suppose surviving a stroke beats the alternative. Mine was a stroke of the brain stem. Still, I, too, have short term memory issues (which forces me to carry pen and paper) ... along with issues I never would have imagined would be stroke induced.
I don't expect some people can understand until they or someone close to them experience a stroke. People drop dead from this or are way more debilitated. Many do what they can (bless Kirk Douglas). But I don't wish those spared this to suffer one in order to pop their blissful ignorance bubble at all.
My mom spent a lifetime in a wheelchair having to patiently deal with those who couldn't understand her daily struggle nor honestly care. Even I gain new insight about what she went through as I reflect with an older mind on it. But what she experienced and how she provided a positive role model helps me in my day to day experience. Mostly, that means being open enough to share with people what it's like when they seem curious but not wasting my own life repeating myself when it becomes obvious that their curiosity was more of a superficial pretense to lecture about something they really knew little or nothing about. Let them believe what they intended to believe, all along, when it comes to that.
I'd much rather argue about AH.
Here's to life and all of its hidden blessings in spite of whatever circumstance they arrive.
