A Change in Plans

Funny how life works. You’re going along at a pretty good clip, watching your grown children raise their families, settling into your twilight years with your husband of so many years you can hardly remember when all of a sudden your life is turned upside down. Things started becoming difficult for my mother 6 years ago. The path she and my father were travelling together took a cruel turn changing my father’s (and by association my mother’s) life forever. My father’s health began declining, he became easily agitated, unusually stressed and forgetful. We all suspected dementia. My parents long awaited plans for retirement – something they had worked hard for became impossible to achieve. Evenings out were impossible – his behavior was erratic, travel was not longer in the cards – the stress was too great for my mother to handle and so they settled into a very lonely homebound existence.

Much is written about the impact Alzheimer’s has on the patient, the difficult decline, the sad and uncontrollable changes to the alzheimer’s sufferer’s personality. But what people overlook is the impact this disease has on the spouse that is “left behind”. Their lives are forever changed. My mother’s world began to shrink, physically, socially and emotionally. No longer invited to couple parties, no longer able to join in community events, no longer able to travel, no longer supported by a loving and caring husband. As his primary caregiver, my mother began living her life at home with my father, losing a little bit more of him every day.

2 years ago we made the difficult decision to move my father into a home.  And once again, my mother was forced to make a dramatic shift in her life. Her world today involves daily visits with my father only to painfully watch his connection to her drift away. His memories of their life together are now completely gone and my mother is left a widow – half a widow – as he is still physically here with her. Unable to move on with her life  – stuck in this tragic space. There is no hope, no treatment plan and no future. It is just a long string of very sad days filled with a lot of what ifs – never knowing how long it will last or what will come next. It is so very difficult to see my father in this state but it is almost more difficult to see my mother’s life slipping away.