Hollywood icon Kirk Douglas‘ shocking confession.
The 93 year old movie legend had a stroke in 1996 and he had to relearn how to speak after the debilitating condition left him at a loss for words – literally.
"It affected my speech. I couldn’t talk," Douglas blogged on his MySpace page.
"Now talking is something we take for granted. We think of something and we say it. We are not concerned with all the mechanisms that are involved in speaking, we don’t appreciate it. Like so many things in life, we don’t appreciate what we have.
"My first reaction to my stroke was to say nothing. It was too much effort to construct the words, the muscles in my tongue, my teeth, I couldn’t coordinate them properly to say a word. It was easier just to say nothing.
"But to say nothing is to withdraw from life. I was not ready for that. So, like a child I learned to speak again. It is still difficult and I still have many moments when I want to give up, but I fight against it.
"The most important thing is that I find that my stroke has made me a better person. I don’t take so many things for granted. I appreciate more and that leads me to care more about others."
POP FYI: Kirk’s real name is Issur Danielovitch, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants and among his many accomplishments he is the father of Michael Douglas.
