JOAN’S BLOG – WED/THUR, MARCH 19/20, 2008 – IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN IT’S A SPOUSE

Do not misunderstand. I acknowledge the pain every family caregiver feels when watching a loved one slip away to Alzheimer’s Disease.  But I created this website because it’s different when it’s a spouse. That difference is on the face and in the tears of every spouse I have talked with this week. The predominant emotion is grief – that the husband or wife with whom we have shared our life, pillow talk in the darkness at the end of a day; excitement at the birth of our children;  passion; the deepest of emotional connections; and all of the triumphs and tragedies of a lifetime union, has disappeared.  They haven’t died in the physical sense; the essence of their being, the person we loved, has died within them, leaving a confused, cognitively impaired, childlike figure in their place. And the worst of it is that it hasn’t happened all at once. The agony of Alzheimer’s Disease is that they die a little at a time; each year of this dreadful nightmare takes another piece of them, so we are forced to grieve and mourn over and over again.

Nothing that I have ever seen or experienced can compare to the pain of losing a spouse in this manner. When we look at our husband or wife, we are awash in loneliness and longing, and we think  “Where is my husband? Where is my wife? Where did you go? Where are you? I miss you. I want you here with me.”

To those of you who continue to suffer in silence and isolation, I tell you that you are not alone. We share this journey with you, understand, and are here to give you support. All you have to do is reach out and accept it, either in person at one of those support groups we discussed this week, or here on this website. To those of you who have learned the value of sharing difficult emotions with one another, I thank you for being there for all of us when we have needed you.

Feedback to joan@thealzheimerspouse.com

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