Dealing with the death of a spouse is painful. Especially
after sixty years of a good strong marriage. But what if you had to wake up
every day and rediscover that your husband of sixty years has died and you are
just now learning about it for the first time. The shock of that first time is
fresh every morning. It grabs at your heart and wrings it into a knot.
This is the place Alzeheimer's disease has brought my mother.
I wish I knew how to escape. I try to avoid the subject, try diversion, find
ways to make the blow poetic. Daddy’s gone fishing with his brothers in Heaven.
When I try to avoid answering, “where is Daddy?” she gets angry and wants to
know why I won’t answer the question. Sometimes I say, “I don’t know…” Then she
goes on a search to try and find him. We are at the precarious point where she
has confusion, but just enough memory and reason to insist on answers.
The best solution so far has been to give her the album of
sympathy cards and obituary to let her sit and peaceful read all of the
thoughts people have shared at his passing. She gets sad but the realization
that everyone has acknowledged his passing and her pain helps her get through
it better.
We sit and pray together and talk about Daddy making a new home for her in Heaven with all of the family together again. God will call her when it is ready.
