JOAN’S BLOG – TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012 – AN ALZHEIMER VALENTINE’S DAY

Valentine's Day - It’s just a day. No one has to celebrate it. We always chose to do so. Nothing fancy. Flowers, cards, and dinner out. What was special was our feelings for one another that deepened over the years. We loved each other with a closeness, friendship, passion, and devotion that neither of us took for granted, and friends envied. As the Valentine’s Days together increased, we could look back at our luck and joy at finding one another, and look ahead to more years of emotional togetherness.

I don’t know why he loved me so much. Although I have a wonderful sense of humor, can be passionate, nurturing, and supportive, I can also be bossy and bitchy. I guess in his mind, the former compensated for the latter.

I know why I loved him so much. He was physically strong, emotionally soft, warm hearted, protective, and my biggest cheerleader. I felt safe, loved, and content in his arms.

Today is another Valentine’s Day. Today, as every day, he tells me that he loves me and he lists the reasons. According to him, I am the best wife in the world because I:

Take good care of him.
Take him to doctor appointments.
Take him and pick him up from wherever he wants to go.
Remember everything he cannot.
Make sure he takes the correct pills.
Find the appropriate doctors for his multiple medical problems.
Keep our lives organized.
Anticipate his needs.
Found a wonderful Day Program for him.
Am there to do whatever needs doing for him.

Looking over that list, it does not appear to be reasons a husband loves a wife. They are reasons a patient is grateful for, or ‘loves’ his caregiver.

My husband is now my patient; my responsibility; my child. I accept my caregiver role because of all the love, happiness, safety, and security we shared before Alzheimer’s Disease changed everything forever.

Although it does not seem so, I am trying to be thankful for the loving relationship we had, and not dwell on the patient/caregiver relationship we now have, but today I am not succeeding. I am sharing my honest feelings of sadness with you. I cannot help but miss the man my husband was, the marriage we had, the passion we shared – on Valentine’s Day and every day.

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The Alzheimer Spouse LLC
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