Death of a Spouse

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. 

The Worst Month Ever

The Worst Month Ever
When I took Dad to the hospital in February for pneumonia they did chest x-rays and his lungs were clear other than the fluid from the pneumonia congestion. They tapped his chest and removed a liter of fluid and he was breathing much better.
Two months later we return with the congestion again. This time it showed lung cancer had filled his right bronchial tube and lung. It had even gone to the lymph nodes and chest cavity down to the kidneys. Dad decided to not pursue any treatment and to let the cancer run its course. That was on April 7^th. He went home with Hospice of the Valley providing nurses, doctors, aides, and pharmacy. They even set up a hospital bed at home. It was the best possible care and at home as he wanted. We kept him as comfortable as possible and he had time to say his goodbyes. Twenty days later he slipped away peacefully. Mom had spent the morning holding his hand. I had given him his meds at 8:30 and he nodded that he was in no pain. I told him again of the plans we had made to get a new car so I could take Mom to California to see my sister Jo and her family in their new home. We had not taken a vacation in a long time, since he had his stroke in 2005, seven years ago. So he was happy I was taking Mom on the trip. He smiled a half droopy smile. The previous stroke symptoms had reappeared. Fifteen minutes later he slipped away. The aide had come to change the bedding and he was gone.
Mom accepted it all very easily, as if he were a stranger. I knew it would hit her in a moment of clarity, but even when it did it wasn’t very emotional. It wasn’t until a week later that it really hit her. Her sister from Maine was visiting and her younger sister who lives here winters was here as well. When we are talking about him she finally realized he was gone and she broke down.
Over the Memorial at home and at the Cemetery she seemed a bit confused and we stayed close. Sometimes she thinks it was her Father who passed away. When she does understand it was her husband, she comments how strange it is so many people have passed recently. Actually he is the only one recently, the others have been gone 30 years or more. But in her mind it all happens now, fresh everyday.