My family could see that they were going to need continued help, if I was going to keep getting better. Don’t forget, Phyllis already had her hands full taking care of Ellen. Wisely, she approached Ian at the hospital the day I was discharged, and asked if he would consider leaving to come and work privately with me. Luckily for us, he said yes!
IAN: I loved Wally. It was killing me that he was going to leave. So I went with him, and for the next two and a half years, he was my main guy. It was my responsibility to take him to the next level of recovery. I was determined to help him get better.
It’s sometimes hard for me to believe that all of this happened ten years ago. Everything is so different now. We’ve all gone through so much. But back on that August day when I was finally going home, I’m sure my family felt some relief, but also some anxiety about how we would all cope once we were under the same roof once again. We’d had tremendous support from so many good people through all of the trauma of my injury up to that point. But we would need more support for some time to come.
One of the things I asked Phyllis when I got out of the hospital was to take me to the cemetery to visit my father’s grave. I’m not sure exactly why I wanted to go: partly to pay my respects, maybe to reflect on my own survival, I don’t know. Of course she said yes, and we went there together. She had no idea what was coming, and neither did I. When I got there, I looked at my father’s grave. I was prepared for that. But then I saw my mother’s beside it. That sent me into shock. You see, I had lost the memory of her death, which had taken place only three years before my stroke, and that was right in the period when my memory loss is almost complete. Poor Phyllis didn’t know what to do. I just wept. I was thrown right back into grief over my mother’s death, as though it had happened the day before. In my impaired state, it might as well have.
WAYNE: My dad was so close to his mother, it was a devastating loss in the first place. Then, he had to go through that trauma all over again. It was all so hard, more on my mother and Kim than anyone else, since they were there every day. We would see minor improvements, but then he’d regress again. We were not sure for the longest time just where he’d end up mentally. But he was always a big fighter, with a tremendous passion for life and people. Basically, it’s a miracle he survived at all. They say things happen for a reason, and maybe in his case, having the aneurysm helped add twenty years to his life, because it forced him to stop smoking and take better care of himself. But it was a long, hard process.
Yes, coming home from the hospital was a milestone for all of us, and a welcome one. But the incident in the graveyard signalled to everyone that our hard times were not yet behind us. As much as we’d struggled and survived in the previous ten months, we still had a long way to go.
Mary and Tony Gretzky, with Walter, on their cucumber farm near Canning, Ontario
Walter’s first school picture, class of 1943. He’s in the middle of the front row.
Walter, centre right, playing Junior B hockey with the Woodstock Warriors. He had NHL dreams and skills, but he was too small. Below, second from left in the front row, with the Princeton Panthers.
Walter’s friend Warren MacGregor is in the middle row, second from left.
“Walter’s kind of like Wayne, you know,” says Walter’s brother, Albert Gretzky. “He was smart, he had talent, all the girls were after him …”
Walter, at left, with his father, who is holding Ellen, the year the Nith River flooded the farm
“I loved fishing. I’d go in the morning and wouldn’t come back until late at night.”
Hamming it up in front of the farmhouse
Walter got on at Bell Canada right out of high school and worked there for thirty-four years.
Walter met Phyllis at a wiener roast at the farm. She’d come with another boy but he didn’t let that stop him.
Leaving the church in 1960.
Kim and Wayne
“Tato” with Ellen, to his left. Clockwise from left, grandkids Glen, Kim, Donna, Wayne, Kenny, Danny and Keith.
Clockwise from top right, Kim, Brent, Keith, Glen and Wayne
Walter with his mother just before she died; below, with Phyllis, delivering Wayne to the altar at his wedding to Janet in 1988.
The mother and father of the groom
Very early days at home after the stroke
The first note he sent to Phyllis
With Laurie Ham, the family friend who rushed him to the hospital
Careful planning and mental exercises
Designed to bring Walter back to where he could function independently
Walter with Ian Kohler, the therapist who became his son-in-law, outside Brent Gretzky’s condo in Atlanta in 1993
The checklist Walter had to use to get through his morning routine in rehab
At home, cuddled up with Kayla, Keith’s oldest child
At Ty’s birthday party
With Ian, and Walter’s grandson Nathan in 2000
With hockey icons Eddie Shack, Johnny Bauer and Wayne Gretzky
One of the few times in recent years that the whole family has been together, at Wayne’s induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame. From left, Brent, Kim, Keith, Walter, Phyllis, Glen and Wayne.
Walter, Wayne, Butch Steele and Glen, celebrating the last time Wayne won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy for most gentlemanly player.
With good friend Ron Finucan
Walter and Daniel
And on the golf course, “The craziest swing known to mankind, but it works for me.”
One of the Gretzky family’s proudest moments was when Wayne was awarded the Order of Canada by then-Governor General Roméo LeBlanc.
Walter on Phyllis, his wife of forty-one years: “I joke about the fact that she’s the boss, but it’s true!”
chapter five
HOME AGAIN
I must have been happy and relieved to finally sleep in my own bed, after surviving the stroke and surgery and spending ten months in East Cottage. I don’t remember, and maybe I just don’t want to remember. Back then, I had no sense of the impact my stroke was having on my family and friends. People were very kind and did their best to help me, taking the load off Phyllis and Kim whenever they could. Our next-door neighbour Karen Redpath took me for regular walks around the neighbourhood. At least once or twice a week, Ron Finucan would take me out to dinner and a movie. (At home, I’d try to watch a movie on TV and I’d just fall asleep or wander away, but at the theatre at least I’d stay awake! My old friend Warren MacGregor would come by at Phyllis’s request and talk to me, trying to get me to understand that like him, I was retired from Bell and no longer had to clock in with my repair truck! It was quite the community effort.
But it was rough on everyone, seeing me in that state. Bryan Wilson recalls driving me out to Port Dover for a day trip shortly after I got home. Bryan and I were great buddies, and once upon a time, we fished together regularly down at Long Point. He always used to tease me about my black socks and black dress shoes, which I’d even wear to go fishing. He was having as hard a time as anyone coping with “the new Wally.”
Now on this little outing, I didn’t know where I was. We took a ride down to Port Dover and had a hot dog, and he asked me questions, just trying to make conversation, but I couldn’t answer. I just looked out the window, working myself into a panic. Then I started arguing with him. “Where am I?” I asked. And he said, “We were just at Dover, Wally.” And I snapped back, “Well, I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be at work in half an hour.” Bryan couldn’t settle me down, and I got really mad at him. It seems I wanted to fight. Finally, Bryan had to take me home.
Phyllis and Kim did their best to accommodate me and my new needs. Living with someone as forgetful, moody and, at times, downright delusional as I was at the time was difficult, no two ways about it. The doctor and rehab people had done their best to prepare my family for what life would be like with me in the house, but still, it was a dramatic shift. They were
there to orient me every step of the way, patiently correcting me whenever I clung to some misperception. They even did things like label the drawers and shelves in the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom so that I would know exactly where everything was, and where to put things back so that I could find them again. This was the long haul.
It was only when I got home that the reality of my situation started to sink in for me, and frankly, it was depressing. This, I’m told, is not uncommon after a stroke. When I was in the hospital, I was in a kind of safe cocoon that allowed me to stay out of touch with reality. In the beginning, a person with a brain injury absolutely needs that kind of quiet, stable environment to go through the first stages of healing and recovery. But when I got home, on some level I knew that here I was, in the house I’d left the day I had the aneurysm, and I was not the same person. There’s a sense of loss with that, some actual grief, even if I could not articulate it, which probably added to my sense of disorientation and made me want to hang on to the past I could remember. For the longest time, even after I got home, I remained obsessed about a number of things and clung to several misguided notions. I couldn’t get it straight that my mother had passed away. Kim recalls one awful instance when I somehow got the idea that my mother was lying inside a large hockey bag. I would not let go of this notion, until finally my poor daughter, in great frustration, actually opened up the bag to show me that all it contained was some old hockey gear. I frequently thought I had to rescue Ellen and Brent from some kind of danger, and I still could not accept that I was actually retired. I kept on thinking I was late for work, or that my Bell truck had been stolen. On top of this, I had trouble retaining the most basic information, moment to moment.
KIM: I remember one night, he couldn’t find his watch. Dad, Mum, Ian and I hunted the whole house for his watch. And after forty-five minutes, Dad leaned up against the wall and said, “You know what? I forget what the hell I’m looking for. What are we looking for?” Things like that happened all the time. It got to the point where my mum and I finally realized that even though it wasn’t really funny, some of the things he did, you had to laugh or you’d cry. Because it was pretty much just my mum and me, day-to-day. The boys had all gone back to play hockey. This went on a long, long time.
Perhaps hardest for those around me to accept, was the fact that all the things that had once been my life’s passions—hockey, fishing, photography, working on the garden or at other chores at the farm—were somehow gone. I just didn’t have enough memory or motivation to involve myself in any of it. I’m sure my family truly wondered what on earth they were going to do with me now. All of my grief and confusion over the negative changes in my life caused me to be withdrawn, and very cranky whenever anyone tried to get me up and doing things. That worried everyone. All they could do was keep on correcting and encouraging me, and have faith that I would get better. Without that, it would have been pretty hopeless.
Probably one of the worst moments for them came when they realized that I no longer enjoyed watching hockey. For more than a decade, Eddie, Butch and I watched all of Wayne’s games on TV. Even if the game was one of the L.A. Kings games and started at 10:30 at night, Butch and Eddie would be at the door. We called Butch “the chip man” because he brought the chips, and Eddie was “the donut man” because he’d always show up with donuts. Now Wayne would be playing, and Butch and Eddie would put the game on, and I just wasn’t interested. I’d tell them to lock up the house after the game was over, and I’d go to bed. I think everyone was in shock, because, of course, before the aneurysm, hockey was just everything to me. I know this was a terrible thing for my family and for Butch and Eddie to accept. I think it was especially hard on Wayne.
WAYNE: It was really difficult, because up to that time, any decision I ever made, my dad was always my first phone call. He had more common sense than anyone I knew. He was my sounding board, especially when it came to giving me advice about actually playing hockey, and I had a couple of tough years when I lost that. I remember feeling it in particular during the Stanley Cup semifinals in 1993. I wasn’t playing well. We were in Toronto, down three games to two. Normally, my dad would always be there to hear what I had to say. On my day off, I would have been able to go home and get him to calm me down. He was as nervous as a mouse himself, but somehow he could make me feel less wound up about my playing. It’s funny, because he was always honest. He could tell me I wasn’t playing my best, but in a way that built me up. I remember feeling it during that time, just realizing that I couldn’t go to him for that any more.
BRENT: I remember, we’d be at the house and he’d be asking for me. I’d be sitting right beside him and he’d say, “No, baby Brent,” things like that. I was nineteen then. That was a scary feeling. He was kind of distant. He knew from people telling him who was coming to see him, but I don’t think he really knew who I was in the beginning. I’d sit there, and he’d still have a blank look on his face when he was looking at me. That hurt when you left, too. But we just kept going, trying to get him to remember. Just had to keep repeating it until he finally got it.
Of course, we were fortunate to have Ian with us, day to day. I think I would have driven Phyllis and the kids crazy (I did anyway) if it were not for his hands-on help. He did everything in consultation with the doctors and therapists in the Acquired Brain Injury Program. I was still under Dr. Garner’s care. Ian was reporting regularly to him throughout the time he worked with me. He was on the phone a lot, discussing things like medication and any obstacles he saw to getting me further along in my recovery. Dr. Garner helped Ian understand what was behind my cognitive difficulties, as did John Sullivan and other therapists. If he needed assistance or wanted to consult, he could set up appointments. He would take me down to the outpatient clinic at Chedoke about every four months. We met with John Sullivan to do formal cognitive retraining exercises. They were just a small portion of my day, but Ian made sure I did the exercises religiously. I copied out numbers and answered questions, in order to help me attend to information, to think about what I was hearing and remember it. It took a long time, but I do think this helped me.
IAN: Because of Wally’s condition, we needed to find a quiet place where he could get some exercise that was out of the public eye. Eddie Ramer made arrangements for us to work out at the S.C. Johnson Wax employee gymnasium nearby. We went every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. Phyllis got some relief, and Wally had an opportunity to gain some strength and conditioning.
At first he resisted any form of exercise to the point of me having to physically pull him around the gym. Table tennis is a good sport for improving physical and mental reflexes, attention span and hand-eye coordination. I encouraged him to play and reluctantly he did. Playing basketball and ice skating were other activities for Wally, designed to encourage independent functioning.
I remember the first time Glen and I took him skating. It was a major family event, with Phyllis, Ellen and Kim looking on with hopeful anticipation. For a man known around the world for teaching the world’s greatest hockey player how to skate and play hockey, he couldn’t even stand on skates. He needed the help of Glen and myself just to get around the ice. As much as we were excited to take him skating for the first time, it really showed the family that he was very much a different man.
I may have been a reluctant and uncooperative participant at first, but Ian did what he could to establish some routines in my life and help me stick to them. He would show up at the house around nine every morning. Usually Butch would be there with coffee for everyone, and I would still be upstairs in bed. That was the worst part of the day. Poor Ian could not get me out of bed. I simply would not get up. I was very stubborn. It got to the point where they were considering whether or not I was becoming clinically depressed. I was never diagnosed with depression, but my withdrawal and lack of motivation, my desire to sleep all the time, in bed or on the couch, and my irritability certainly were classic symptoms. I was shutting out the world. I
didn’t have a great appetite, either. For the longest time, all I wanted to eat was Kraft Dinner, which was strange because normally I didn’t mind eating it once in awhile but would never have wanted a steady diet of it. For some reason, I couldn’t get enough of it after my stroke.
Ian was pretty creative in figuring out how to get me out of bed! He didn’t want to physically pull me out, so he got the most annoying alarm clock he could find. My bed was at one end of the room, and he would sneak in there when I was asleep and set the alarm at the other end of the room. The damn thing would go off and I couldn’t stand it! I would have slept already ten, eleven, twelve hours. It was definitely time for me to get up. I do have a flash of a memory: me, darting across the room, cursing, to shut the alarm off. Then Ian would get in between me and the bed. Quite an ingenious intervention! He’d say, “Sorry, Wally. Nope, you’re not getting back in there. There’s the door, we’re going downstairs for breakfast.” And I would get so angry with him! It never got physical, but I would be furious. Butch and Phyllis would be downstairs, listening to all this, and Ian would be trying to get me downstairs. Eventually I started to become conditioned to the alarm routine, and then I got sneaky myself. I would try to beat Ian to the blaring clock and back to the bed! I laugh when they tell me about that now. I can hardly believe I behaved that way.
On Family, Hockey and Healing Page 13