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My husband and son suffered strokes 30 years apart.

Shockingly little had changed by Sheila Hale, read by Philida Nash.

Okay. led by Philida Nash. On the night before the accident, John and I and our son Jay, who was then 26,

lingered in the garden, drinking wine and enjoying the midsummer scent of Jasmine and

lilies. We talked about the Manet exhibition we had just seen at the National Gallery.

We probably talked about how the end of the Cold War might affect the chances of Bill Clinton,

winning the presidential election against George H.W. Bush in November.

I know what John thought about that. I only wish I could recall his words.

The next morning, 30th of July, 1992, John got up before me, as he always did. In the kitchen,

I found the contents of the dishwasher, knives, fork, spoons, plates,

mugs, jumbled together on the table.

This was odd because unloading the dishwasher was the one domestic ritual he willingly performed.

It would be years before I learned the reason.

At the time, I put it down to absent-mindedness.

It was a month since he had delivered a book to the publisher,

and he was already preoccupied by the next one,

about art in the European Renaissance.

Before I had time to be annoyed,

I had a crash from his study at the top of the house. I ran upstairs and found him lying on the floor next to his desk. He looked up at me with the radiant, witless smile of a baby, and he said, dull walls. The ambulance took us to the local hospital, where they said that my husband had had a cerebral accident, a stroke. The cause was probably years of uncontrolled high blood pressure,

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