I don’t remember much anymore. I remember being in the back yard. Spring was turning into summer and I was going to water the grass. I hadn’t been feeling too well, but I needed to get the sprinkler set up. I was walking out to the back yard, pulling the hose and the sprinkler. Then the headache hit me. It was like a starshell burst and I was inside it, or it inside me. Lights sparkling all around me. My left leg collapsed and I flopped down like a rag doll. I heard Mikey, my grandson, call out. “Gampa fall down, boom!” I felt his body fall on mine like a little boy climbing onto his grandpa. I tried to tell him to get help, but the words just wouldn’t form. The concepts were there, but it was like the words themselves were sliding away.

I remember brief bits of the ambulance ride. The siren seems so far away. I remember lights, and talking. Noises really that didn’t make much sense to me at the time. I remember the smell of fresh baked bread.

I remember Julia saying, “Tom, you’ve had a stroke”.