Fortitude's Footing: Coming to Terms With Stroke

Biographie de Mary Ellen Gambutti

My earliest memories were formed from words and music. My first five months are mostly unaccounted for, but the couple who would adopt me sang and smiled, talked, and read to me. I studied Webster's Dictionary at bedtime from age eight and wrote personal poems. Reading, vocabulary, grammar, and spelling sustained my interest in school when Air Force transfers disrupted my elementary education. I let go of word-stringing: jottings, notes, lists, letters, essays, and poetry when at age fifty-eight I was stricken with a brain hemorrhage.
While recovering at home, after months of hospital rehab,  began online writing courses to suss the "why" and "how" of my life, beginning with the story of my stroke. I absorbed the memoirs of Natalie Goldberg, Annie Dillard, Brenda Miller, and many others, captivated by the words and meaning that poured from their souls. I practiced on my new laptop, typing with my formerly unfavored left hand, as I still do, taking stock of what has happened to me, as well as what I have made happen.
Thus, writing memoirs is therapeutic, and life-affirming. I hope my words resonate with you.