On Hope
February 2, 2023 8:08 AM Subscribe
When my husband suffered a stroke, I was determined that this was not going to be the thing that unwound our love.
Jen Agg is best known in the Toronto food scene and tends to be a polarizing figure. Her book about her experiences of misogyny and sexism in her career in the restaurant industry is called I Hear She's a Real Bitch. (I liked it.)
Regardless of where you fall on her, her devotion to her husband is very very passionate and real.
Jen Agg is best known in the Toronto food scene and tends to be a polarizing figure. Her book about her experiences of misogyny and sexism in her career in the restaurant industry is called I Hear She's a Real Bitch. (I liked it.)
Regardless of where you fall on her, her devotion to her husband is very very passionate and real.
yeah, this is incredible and terrifying and sad and beautiful. thanks for sharing it.
posted by Kybard at 8:29 AM on February 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Kybard at 8:29 AM on February 2, 2023 [2 favorites]
Oh, man...sometimes I think going very suddenly like Agg's husband almost did would be the best way to go (a friend of mine died instantly of an aneurism several years ago while on vacation in Amsterdam, riding a bike around on what I was told was a gorgeous day, which...he was too young, but you could do much worse), but on the other hand the thought of my wife running up the stairs like Agg did and finding me like that is rough.
I generally don't dwell on matters like this, but if and when I do I'm reminded of a Louis C.K. (fuck that guy, obviously) bit I saw years ago where he said something along the lines of how if you're in a loving relationship the best-case scenario is that one day one of you will be there when the other dies. I'm sitting here welling up just thinking about it.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:49 AM on February 2, 2023 [7 favorites]
I generally don't dwell on matters like this, but if and when I do I'm reminded of a Louis C.K. (fuck that guy, obviously) bit I saw years ago where he said something along the lines of how if you're in a loving relationship the best-case scenario is that one day one of you will be there when the other dies. I'm sitting here welling up just thinking about it.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:49 AM on February 2, 2023 [7 favorites]
The ending was great:
"I thought, damn, I’ll never do this with my husband ever again. I’ll never walk aimlessly around a city with him ever again. I welled up behind my sunglasses. And then I thought, he never liked doing this shit anyway."
posted by rhonzo at 10:31 AM on February 2, 2023 [9 favorites]
"I thought, damn, I’ll never do this with my husband ever again. I’ll never walk aimlessly around a city with him ever again. I welled up behind my sunglasses. And then I thought, he never liked doing this shit anyway."
posted by rhonzo at 10:31 AM on February 2, 2023 [9 favorites]
It's sad that she never mentions their son Jamal except in passing. I hope that's just because he didn't want to be a character in her essay.
posted by monotreme at 11:38 AM on February 2, 2023
posted by monotreme at 11:38 AM on February 2, 2023
IIRC, Roland's kids are grown. He and Agg have no children together.
posted by Kitteh at 12:21 PM on February 2, 2023
posted by Kitteh at 12:21 PM on February 2, 2023
if you're in a loving relationship the best-case scenario is that one day one of you will be there when the other dies
Which is heart-breaking and amazingly beautiful all at once. What a privilege to be with your most treasured loved ones as they have the final experience in life, I wouldn't want them to be with anyone else.
posted by LooseFilter at 12:21 PM on February 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
Which is heart-breaking and amazingly beautiful all at once. What a privilege to be with your most treasured loved ones as they have the final experience in life, I wouldn't want them to be with anyone else.
posted by LooseFilter at 12:21 PM on February 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
sometimes I think going very suddenly like Agg's husband almost did would be the best way to go
Yeah. Speaking as an american, i’ve seen what lingering within our healthcare system looks like, and i want none of that. Hope for a quick, merciful, end.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:30 PM on February 2, 2023 [7 favorites]
Yeah. Speaking as an american, i’ve seen what lingering within our healthcare system looks like, and i want none of that. Hope for a quick, merciful, end.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:30 PM on February 2, 2023 [7 favorites]
It's a touching story, and an insightful look into a relationship using a tremendous strain... but as a healthcare worker, I found parts of this essay infuriating. The way Agg seems to have taken COVID precautions as a personal slight, or for rules for other people is selfish, arrogant, and dangerous.
Yes, everyone wants to accompany their loved one right up until they are wheeled into the OR, be there when they come out, stay with them in the hospital, and visit when they're in rehab. Those are all actually wonderful things -- in a normal world. But the pandemic did not give us a normal world. It gave us a world where the physical presence of other humans came with the danger of spreading a deadly disease. Infectious disease protocols do not exist to personally inconvenience anyone.
So many of the seemingly touching moments Agg relates during the acute and rehab part of her husband's stroke read to me as someone who felt entitled and exempt from the rules. Her writing certainly coveys that she felt it was deeply meaningful for her to pull off her PPE to give her husband a smile or to bully her way past isolation protocols into rehab. To me, who has literally seen people die because visiting family members introduced COVID to an inpatient unit, it's narcissistic.
I have other issues with the approach she and her family took to recovery goals, but it's really just the same mistake everyone makes post-stroke. They all -- particularly the patients -- want to get back to doing things just ask well as they did before, in the same way they did before. But if a stroke leaves you with hemiplegia or partial blindness, these are not things that are going to come back in any meaningful way. Part of recovery is learning to do old tasks in new ways, which necessarily entails a period of being embarrassingly incompetent, which no one likes.
And all those nurses who were "perfunctory at best" on "understaffed" wards in the middle of a fucking pandemic? Always good to get another reminder of how steep and quick the slide from "hero" to resented service industry schlub can be.
posted by Panjandrum at 10:36 PM on February 2, 2023 [29 favorites]
Yes, everyone wants to accompany their loved one right up until they are wheeled into the OR, be there when they come out, stay with them in the hospital, and visit when they're in rehab. Those are all actually wonderful things -- in a normal world. But the pandemic did not give us a normal world. It gave us a world where the physical presence of other humans came with the danger of spreading a deadly disease. Infectious disease protocols do not exist to personally inconvenience anyone.
So many of the seemingly touching moments Agg relates during the acute and rehab part of her husband's stroke read to me as someone who felt entitled and exempt from the rules. Her writing certainly coveys that she felt it was deeply meaningful for her to pull off her PPE to give her husband a smile or to bully her way past isolation protocols into rehab. To me, who has literally seen people die because visiting family members introduced COVID to an inpatient unit, it's narcissistic.
I have other issues with the approach she and her family took to recovery goals, but it's really just the same mistake everyone makes post-stroke. They all -- particularly the patients -- want to get back to doing things just ask well as they did before, in the same way they did before. But if a stroke leaves you with hemiplegia or partial blindness, these are not things that are going to come back in any meaningful way. Part of recovery is learning to do old tasks in new ways, which necessarily entails a period of being embarrassingly incompetent, which no one likes.
And all those nurses who were "perfunctory at best" on "understaffed" wards in the middle of a fucking pandemic? Always good to get another reminder of how steep and quick the slide from "hero" to resented service industry schlub can be.
posted by Panjandrum at 10:36 PM on February 2, 2023 [29 favorites]
@Panjandrum: Hear! Hear! People like that have added to our sum total of misery. Many of my nieces are nurses and worked heroically through the pandemic.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 8:07 AM on February 3, 2023
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 8:07 AM on February 3, 2023
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posted by Superilla at 8:25 AM on February 2, 2023