JOAN’S BLOG – TUE, JANUARY 31/WED. FEBRUARY 1, 2012 – LIFE AS AN ALZHEIMER WIDOW/WIDOWER

Yes, I have written, and we have discussed, many times, the importance of starting a life away from Alzheimer’s Disease before our spouses die. Yes, we have discussed how Alzheimer’s Disease places us in “limbo”. We stand by in despair as we watch the disease rob our spouses’ of their personalities, abilities, and cognition. As each piece of who they were disappears, we mourn and grieve for the death of that piece. We are alone; we mourn; we grieve; no longer a spouse, but a caregiver, yet not really a widow/widower. We are widows/widowers with living spouses, and had better take baby steps to move into the non-Alzheimer world as a single person long before our spouses die, or we will have no life to live when they are gone.

Discussions, however, are starkly different from experiences. When one actually finds oneself in the single world, it is quite a shock. It happened to me last week. I was enjoying my weekly Mahjong game with my Non-Alzheimer neighbors. One is married; one lives with a boyfriend (manfriend, I guess is a better description, as they are in their 70’s); one is either divorced or widowed – I did not ask. And me – Ms Living in Limbo.

Married Lady was asking Co-Habiting Lady if she and her SO would like to go with Married Lady and her husband to a casino parlor on Thursday night. At that moment, I realized that never again would I be asked to be part of a Non-Alzheimer’s “couple’s group”.  Oddly and to my surprise, it did not pierce like an arrow through my heart, as so many Alzheimer losses have done. It just sat there in my brain as an “Oh, right, this is how it is now.”  I was not angry or hurt that I was not asked. I understood. In the Alzheimer World, I am still ½ of a “couple”. All of my female friends are Alzheimer Spouses. We are able to socialize as couples. However, in the Non-Alzheimer world, the world in which my husband feels stressed and under pressure when he cannot keep up with, remember, or process most of the conversation or activity, a world in which he no longer belongs, I am single. After spending 2/3 of my life as one half of a couple, I am a single woman, on my own socially. This is my new reality.

I have accepted my new status. I have no choice, but it is with a feeling of great sadness. The Married Lady I mentioned above is married to a man, with whom, in another life, my husband would have gotten along famously. Her husband is a community minded “joiner”, who loves to get involved in Homeowner Association meetings, plans, and business. Before Alzheimer’s Disease, this was one of Sid’s passions. She is a retired educator like me. It would have been a great “couples” friendship.

There is so much that “would have been”, “could have been”, “should have been”, if not for Alzheimer’s Disease. I cannot look back. I cannot change the disease. I can only look forward for myself – as a single. It feels very odd.

Please note – I have purposely focused only on female friendships in this blog. The discussion of pursuing a friendship or “more” with a male will be addressed in my next blog.

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