Two years after a stroke, my eyes have not dimmed and my vigour has not diminished

The blossoming magnolia tree in Milton Keynes Hospital offered fresh hope for health, renewal and new life in the week after my stroke two years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

It is two years today since I suffered a stroke in Milton Keynes on 18 March 2022. At the time, I was on leave from parish ministry in the Diocese of Limerick for compassionate and personal reasons, and I was spending Saint Patrick’s Weekend in Milton Keynes when I had that stroke, unexpectedly and without any warning.

Charlotte and I went back to the hospital this afternoon, to see the magnolia tree that gave me hope in the days and weeks immmediately after that stroke, and to thank each other for the life, health and love that we have enjoyed in the two years since then.

I was admitted to Milton Keynes Hospital immediately after the stroke, and spent two weeks in hospitals, first in Milton Keynes and then from 29 March in the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Since that AVM, I have been back to Milton Keynes Hospital for a number of check-ups and consultations, and to Sheffield Hospital for a consultation and overnight for a ‘Gamma Knife’ procedure.

While I was in hospital in Milton Keynes, I was also diagnosed with Covid-19 – for the first time. This did not stop Charlotte visiting me in hospital every day, and eventually, when I was allowed out of isolation, I also took hope for health, renewal and new life from the blossoming magnolia in one of the hospital courtyards, where we sat each afternoon on three consecutive afternoons, sipping coffee and planning our future.

The consequences of that stroke were extensive and far-reaching, beyond the hospital procedures and stays. I had already decided that I was going to retire from parish ministry after that Easter, although I had not yet made any public announcement.

While I was in hospital in Milton Keynes, in advance of being moved to Oxford, I realised I was not going to return to parish ministry in Co Limerick and Co Kerry before my planned retirement date. I agreed with the Dean of Limerick as commissary of the diocese that I would take early retirement at the end of that month, on 31 March 2022.

I was moved to the John Radcliffe Hospital on 29 March and able to leave on 1 April. After another overnight stay in Oxford, I returned to Milton Keynes two weeks after I was first taken to hospital with that stroke.

I eventually moved into a flat in Stony Stratford in early April 2022, and have been living here ever since. I have returned to Ireland four or five times each year for family visits, for research on chapters for books, for interviews with a television station in Montenegro, to meet family members and friends, and I even missed a flight to attend a book launch in Dublin.

In many ways, these have not been two easy years. But there have been many joys too, and Charlotte and I got married last November in Camden Town Hall and Southwark Cathedral. Apart from those visits to Ireland, there have been return visits to Lichfield and Tamworth, visits to York and Sheffield, visits to Hungary and Finland on behalf of the Anglican mission agency USPG, and visits to Venice and Prague and a delayed – although brief – honeymoon in Paris.

I am continuing to write for books, journals, magazines and newspapers, I have now settled down into a flat overlooking the High Street in Stony Stratford – I have mused already on how I could say that over the span of over 50 years it has been a move from one High Street to another, from High Street in Wexford to High Street in Stony Stratford.

There have been continuing consultations with the hospitals in Milton Keynes, Oxford and Sheffield as a follow-up to my stroke two years ago. I had another check-up on my Vitamin B12 levels two weeks ago, and I have another hospital appointment in Milton Keynes next week. At 72, I may not quite be in rude health. But my distant ‘cousin’ Kevin Martin, who died last year (14 June 2023), would greet me on my birthdays with the traditional Jewish greeting of ‘ad meah v’esrim’, ‘may you live until 120!’ (עד מאה ועשרים שנה‎).

Deuteronomy recalls that Moses lived to be 120, at which age ‘his eye had not dimmed, and his vigour had not diminished’ (Deuteronomy 34: 7). Great rabbis of the Talmud, including Hillel, Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, all lived to 120 as well. The blessing carries the implication that the receiver should retain full mental and physical faculties to the end of life.

With those implications, living until I am 120 does not sound so bad a prospect at all. Another half century after my stroke in 2022, and yet another half century after moving into High Street, Wexford, in the early 1970s, may not be so dim or distant a prospect; it might be a real blessing with the love, care and attention I have been receiving over the past two years.

Coffee under the magnolia tree in Milton Keynes Hospital in the week after my stroke two years ago (Photograph: Charlotte Hunter)