Even after hearing and understanding that with the right half of my brain erased, the left side of my body no longer had an operating system, I was naive enough to remain optimistic. in retrospect, this was a profoundly ridiculous and unrealistic attitude, as you will see in later posts if you have staying power and don't mind feeling like a rubbernecker at a wreck, because a wreck is what I would ultimately become. in the early months I didn't believe the worst, but then what else would you expect from a guy who as a child enjoyed Shirley Temple movies, which taught children that things always turn out for the best. For the early months after the stroke I held onto naive optimism.

That the stroke impacts would cripple my ability to do, well, seemingly anything I wanted to do was beyond my ability to accept, as I held onto my Shirley Temple-like confidence that "Hey, maybe this won't be too terrible." I might as well have been a man on a city street glancing up and seeing a grand piano that had been dropped by movers falling directly toward him from four flights up, realizing in an instant that escape is impossible and deciding, "Well, hell, it's only gonna hurt for a second. That's not so bad." I didn't realize how abysmal my life was going to become. How unrelentingly joyless, how useless, powerless and incapable I would feel, how many favorite pastimes I would never again enjoy ... I didn't realize yet that what was left of my life would become so abhorrent to me that I would begin wishing for death and would even take steps to bring it about.

Perhaps it's too early in this blog process to delve deeply into the abyss I sank into. As a writer, I understand the concept of readers needing to care enough about any character in a story if they can be expected to keep reading to see what happens to that character over the rest of the story, and, frankly, it would be a gross understatement to say I did not deal gracefully with my life for at least five of the nine years since the stroke.

So, before I go further and begin to peel back the layers of the smelly onion I became, during which you may decide I am too unlikeable to give a shit -- oops, there's that word again -- about and read no further.

But hey, none of us knows how much grace we will have in reacting to a terrible situation. In my case, as it turned out, not much at all. I have friends who say I've handled a really bad situation as well as anybody could. But hey, those are my friends. What else are friends going to say, right?I love them, but not for their objectivity.

So before you start to hate me, and you just might ... Let me show you something I wrote post-stroke during those halcyon days of Shirley Temple optimism so you can see that, at least then, I was not the steaming turd I would become. Back when I was still a pretty decent guy. Really, I was. I shit you not.

What follows is my farewell column to readers of the Yakima Herald-Republic, which ran on the front page of the newspaper ... an odd place for a personal column, but the managing editor apparently believed my departure because of a medical emergency would be worthy of front-page news to our readers. I wrote this roughly two months after the stroke, having written nothing in the interim. Here it goes:

----------------------------------------------

For the past couple of months I have been enjoying thinking about a very apropos bit of inspiration gifted to me by my niece, Larissa, that went: “When you trip in life, make it part of your dance.” Well, on June 8 I  tripped rather dramatically; you could call it a faceplant. So now I will attempt a little dancing. If you would, feel free to read this column aloud as if accompanied by a little Texas two-step music.

I experienced a very large stroke that has rendered me unable to continue doing the job I have been doing for 16 years at the Yakima Herald-Republic, a job I have long considered and still consider an honor and a privilege. Has anybody ever had a job as cool as the one I’ve had? On the Outdoors side I have gotten to write about some of the wonders of the natural world that we live in and some of the people who enjoy that world to its fullest extent. Specifically I have been able to befriend many people in the Cascadians, some of the most accomplished and fascinating people in the Yakima Valley. When  moved here in 2000 I thought I was in great physical shape. I had been a distance runner for much of my life and have been a lifelong backpacker and was not yet 50 years old. I felt very physically fit. Then I met the Cascadians and discovered what fitness truly was. The first hike I went on with this incredible group of people was an ascent of Earl Peak in the Teanaway. I was one of the youngest people in the group, which was led by a 77-year-old who was kind enough to wait for me at regular intervals on the trail to make sure I made it OK. Sometimes he had to wait for several minutes. He wasn’t the only one kind enough to help me as I struggled along.

A hike with the Cascadians can be a humbling experience for anyone who has a false sense of his or her own personal fitness level. But also a very wonderful learning experience because you’re surrounded by people endowed with extensive knowledge of the botany and wildlife of our world. How many of us meander through our surroundings without understanding what we are passing?

And on the other half of my job, covering high school sports. Omigosh, what a blast. Like the other members of the YHR sports staff, I have covered sports at every level from kid stuff to the professionals. And I can tell you without question that covering a high school sports event in which I have personal knowledge of or acquaintanceship with some of the athletes on the court or the field is so much more fun for me than sitting in a professional sports press box writing about highly paid athletes (with the exception of rodeo professional athletes; what a classy bunch of people. I have called numerous world champions on their personal cell phones out of the blue and been treated with nothing but courtesy and respect, the very things I have come to expect from high school athletes around the Valley.

High school kids play for the love of the game and for the community spelled out on their uniforms. And they play with a passion that engenders a similar excitement within all of us who are watching. Seeing a local team reach postseason tournaments and do well at that level is such a personal thrill — one that I will miss deeply, as I can no longer make my way high into the grandstands of sporting events around the Valley.

The  stroke has left me unable  to do many of the tasks necessary to be a reporter at the level I have come to demand of myself, the level readers of the Yakima Herald-Republic all deserve. That saddens me. So I am now officially retired, with so much I must leave behind. To have been even a small part of the experience for so many young athletes, to have been there for the moments of their lives that they will remember for decades and to be able to chronicle those moments.

Just think: I’ve gotten to do that as a job. People have actually paid me to do it. The Herald-Republic staff is filled with wonderful professionals and great writers, and I have been privileged to work with them and count them among my friends. I can say the same for so many of the coaches and sports officials in the Valley. I’m sure I will find a way to get out to the occasional sports event in the coming months and years. But it will drive me crazy because I’ll be thinking about the ways I would like to write about what I’m seeing. Once a reporter, always a reporter. Even if now only a former reporter and slow-moving novelist.

In the future, I also plan on contributing an occasional column to the Herald-Republic. I’m sure I will be just as long-winded and self-indulgent as ever, so be forewarned.

While I am saddened by the aspects of my job I will no longer be able to fulfill and I will miss those greatly, I do want to pass on to readers and acquaintances that I am not depressed about my situation. That has been a consistent concern to medical professionals since my stroke.

They have done repeated mood assessments of me as if because I’ve had a stroke I might be suicidal or otherwise depressed. And this to me is laughable. When I have been asked those questions, I have simply pointed  to my incredibly supportive and beautiful wife, Rhonda, without whom I could never have navigated the dizzying medical, legal and financial maze of the last two months and said “Look, that is who I get to come home to, so in the big picture I remain a very fortunate man. I won the matrimonial lottery.”

And besides that, since my stroke I have had an experience something akin to a man who gets to attend his own funeral and watch as one person after another approaches the podium to extol his virtues.

The outpouring of support and love from so many people has been deeply touching to me: So many letters, calls, texts, e-mails and other messages, and too many personal hospital visits even to count. To realize my life has impacted so many wonderful people in a positive way has been amazing.

I know the appropriate thing to say here is that I have been very humbled by this response. But I’m afraid it could have the opposite effect. I have managed to go go this long without believing I Am All That, and I’m not sure I want to start believing it now, but this overwhelming response from so many people has me feeling pretty damn special.

So I got to attend my own funeral and I didn’t even have to die to do it. I merely suffered a setback that will make a lot of things more difficult to do now, and that can be overcome. I still get to see my wife every day, and I have enough of my mind to feel a great deal like my pre-stroke self.

Things could be a lot worse. So many people have been praying for me through this entire ordeal and believe me, I have felt those prayers.

Thank you for each and every one.