In the World of Stroke, We are All Equal

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Mr. Lim gestured and smiled to my father. His lips closed tight on one side while he laughs with my father. My father, holding on to his disabled right hand with his left, chuckles together too. Chandra, on the opposite side, shows another sign language (resembling a sexual innuendo), and they laughed even harder.

They were at the National Stroke Association of Malaysia or in short, NASAM, and they all had varying degrees and types of strokes in the past. Chandra could talk but sometimes, he will be too happy, sad or angry as he had a stroke on the right side of the brain.

Meanwhile, both my dad and Mr. Lim had theirs on the left side of the brain, impairing their ability to talk. My dad is half-paralyzed on his right side, but Mr. Lim regained the mobility on his right side.

My family and I have been taking care of my dad for the last 10 years. And today was my turn.

As I look at this familiar sight of them being happy and in some ways, child-like, I can’t help but feel that in their world, everyone was equal.

And when I look at mine or rather the world at large, most of us take every little difference and amplify them to differentiate among racial, class, religious and country lines.

My aim here is to reflect on my father’s experience being a strokee and others also, and apply some of the lessons from their world into ours too.

Most People Who had Stroke Are Empathetic

Not all can talk.

But most understand each other very well. At least, that’s what I feel among all the people at the stroke centre.

One occasion stood out. My dad can’t talk so we have to constantly guess what he’s trying to say or ask. And that increases our frustration.

But not the strokees. They seem to be the most understanding, the most patient. They will look at dad and say things like “His back is itchy”, “The pants is uncomfortable”, “The diapers are wet”, and so on and forth.

And when I asked them how they know what my dad was saying. Their simple reply was just “Cause we have them too”.

It takes people experiencing the same hardship and problems to understand and empathize with others too.

There was a time when my dad reached out his hand to pat another uncle’s back who was a Malay, and the uncle coughs shortly after. It’s like he knew that the cough was coming. The Malay uncle just smiled, and shook my dad’s hand.

The wife who was sitting at the back, came to the front to check what’s up and the Malay uncle just smiled and nodded at her.

They all had strokes and are now disabled. But for some reason, they were more empathetic compared to even the best of peoples.

Every Strokee Have Their Circumstances, But Don’t Differentiate

In simple terms, they were different in background and circumstances, but they never emphasized their differences.

They all do the same exercises in the group sessions. Some can do it, some can’t. But they rarely compared themselves against each other.

In their minds, they were all in the same boat. Some got the front seats. Some got the back seats. But it was never in doubt that they were all equal regardless.

They never asked each other how they got their strokes. Instead, they encouraged each other to look forward.

If anything, it’s the carers like me, who look at the differences between everyone. And we all talked about the different circumstances, treatments, and type of strokes to justify why a certain person was able to recover fully or not.

As I thought more about it, I realized that we have tendencies to draw lines between people in terms of race, religion, class and any other standards.

Malaysians or rather People in General, Have Tendencies to Differentiate

It’s a true statement.

Humans in general for some reason, tend to differentiate. Throughout history, that has been the case. If we can’t categorise you by race, we will categorise you by something else.

I asked myself why’s that? Is it because I am ignorant? Is it because I want to have a simplistic understanding so I do it?

As I thought deeper into this tendency, I realized that in the world of strokes, everyone’s priority is the same – to recover and live a healthy and happy life.

I won’t go so far as to say strokees unite under one banner, but they are all the same place, trying to achieve the same objective that seems so foreign to normal people.

Most of them can’t go back to work anymore. And most will need help from their carers to go about their daily lives. So, they appreciate whatever liberties they have now. Differentiating is the least of their concerns in that context.

They are happy when their family and friends talk to them. They are content when they can enjoy that sip of coffee or tea in the early morning (maybe another one in the afternoon).

Most importantly, they are learning to live with suffering in good terms. And I feel like the world at large, don’t understand that at all.

We Need a Better Understanding of Ourselves Through the Lenses of a Strokee

I feel like we have much to learn from people who had strokes.

Watching the people at NASAM day in and day out, helping each other to recover reminds me of one thing. At the end of our lives, we all have to deal with sickness and death.

And in their eyes, everyone is equal. We all get sick – in one way or another. And we all die. We think of the minute differences between one person to another, but what if we were to face them tomorrow?

Would we do the same?

I think it is precisely why we should think about death (weird thing to say) to better understand ourselves. If we were to die tomorrow, what would we do?

For a strokee, death is something imminent. Every month at the centre, someone will die of another stroke in their sleep. They deal with those thoughts every day.

But they soldier on, coming in every day to recover and continue the fight. They didn’t have time to think of whether this person is Malay, Chinese or Indian or whether they are rich or poor.

Until we confront the question of death and sickness, we will never rid ourselves of our biases and tendencies to differentiate.

For our sake, we better start now. The strokees seemed to be a few steps ahead of us already.