Life is such a mixed bag of stuff and we're not always right about what constitutes a blessing or what constitutes a curse. I cannot imagine what it must be like to go through something like that. My grandfather had a stroke when I was a little girl, too little to remember what he was like before that. What I do remember is him peeling and cutting up a whole bag of grapefruit every time before I came to visit, how he sang 'thank heaven for little girls' because I was the only granddaughter among 14 boys, how he did crossword puzzles every day, and how he complained that he use to be a strapping young man but my grandmother's insistence on scrubbing him clean every day had worn him away.

I imagine having a stroke in 2018, with all our knowledge and understanding and also warning signs shared over social media has made it a vastly different experience from having one in 1980.

The people who knew what my grandfather lost would be very few by the time I built memories of him. I wonder how that felt to him...

Life is like that. I am glad you're here; there has been a version that I will never fully be aware of, but every version of you lead to the one that you are now.