.....Since I happen to be drawn to this website like a moth to a flame. I feel like I should contribute something once in a while. I realize that my behavior may seem a bit unusual, but I find because of my age, people are very forgiving. ....Sometimes when I'm in a restaurant or wherever, I notice a happy couple who remind me of my own happy bygone days, And I feel the need to give the guy a little note. I always slip it to him on my way out so that I'm out the door before he can read it......I don't get out often, and I've only done this a few times when the conditions are just right........ Here's the little note. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .....Yes, I'm an old man, older than dirt. And my behavior may seem strange, but I can't help it because that's just the way I am. .....I think you and your pretty wife are at a stage in your life where I once was. And every time I see a happy couple such as you, it brings back memories of long ago, and I feel the need to share a few words with you. I carry these little notes for that purpose. .....My Dear Wife left me two years ago after a ten year battle with vascular dementia and during the sorrow and sadness of that experience, the one thought that was always on my mind was that I did not express my love for her as often as I could have while she was still able to think and understand. As I think back on it now, that is my one regret and it will always be with me. I wish so much that I could have her back with me one last time so I could give her a hug and tell her how much I love her. One never realizes the value of what he has until he looses it. .....I just wanted to tell you this so maybe you can avoid ending up like me. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EDITED 8-10-2014.......... Now I'm questioning whether I want to keep doing this. Helen has been gone for almost two years. I have friends from thealzheimerspouse.com website who have gone through all this and even though their loved ones had passed long ago, they can't seem to think about anything else and they are all 20 or 30 years younger than me. I will never forget her or the good times we had or how much I miss her, but now I think it's time for me to put her a little further into the back of my mind and maybe I can still do some good in the world, which always makes me happy. No more little notes to strangers.
Georgieboy, you are a true gem! I am sure your wife knew how much you loved her and the depth of that love. And I'll bet you said "I love you" more often than you recall. A life well lived is not soon forgotten. Be kind to yourself, caregiving for a spouse with dementia is probably the hardest thing any of us will ever do; it alters us in every way. I refer you to Wolf's incredible posts.
Through your postings and contributions (I know you don't want to give "advice") your wisdom and generosity shows. How kind of you to share your life lessons with total strangers. You have touched many lives on this forum and continue to do so in your "real" life. Thank you for sharing your life's experiences.
george, I agree with LFL. Your wife surely knew how much you loved her. A person who is loved deeply knows it by her lover's considerate behavior, not just by his words. It's nice to hear someone say, "I love you," but most people who feel secure in another's love do not need constant verbal reassurances.
Don't beat yourself up. It is more customary now than it was in years past for people to say "I love you." That doesn't mean that people long ago were not loved or that they did not know they were loved. They were loved and they knew it.
Thanks for sharing this Georgieboy. You are a gem and I'm sure your wife knew that and loved you so very much. I, too, appreciate all the 'contributions' you have made and are still making! What would we do without each other here?
George, I agree with the others that you shouldn't beat yourself up for not constantly telling Helen how much you loved her. As the saying goes, "Actions speak louder than words", and I am sure you demonstrated your love in many ways, both before and after the dementia struck. I can't imagine your dear wife didn't feel your love. George, I think you are amazing and enjoy your posts.
I do not regret how often I did not tell her I love her. I do not regret the many times I told her I love her. I know nothing about love of this kind except through her and while I see others loving each other, I don't know what they mean because no couple we knew were that similar to us and many were visibly different.
I also don't dwell on the times I let her down where she also let me down. There were a handful on either side where she cried when I told her I was still going to play basketball once we had been married a few months. It never occurred to me she would not want me to stay physically active in a sport I had played continuously when we dated.
I also have long forgiven myself for the times I let her down when I was taking care of her. There weren't many but they stung badly for some time until I realized I was choosing to forget all the care I did give her and all the cost to me for doing that for years. It took a wrenching focus on my part to learn to bring that up when I was lashing myself for my letdowns.
I literally had to struggle to not be inhumane to myself. To put the relatively few bad moments in neon while always murdering what I sacrificed and throwing it off the train. What maddness is that?
If my examples seem extreme they are also openly honest where I put it to you for consideration that the privilege of having someone you so adore that you can't tell them how much you love them enough makes you an extremely rich man even now.
Like the man standing outside the confection store looking at the thing they would love to have but one day years from now they may not still have them and so they never confect. I pass that person like a gust of wind and line up.
Dianne is facing her fate with courage it seems where one presumes she would always have contacted Alzheimers at this time of her life and would always be there on this date facing her fate with courage regardless if we had met or not.
I on the other hand could have avoided this. I could have avoided true love and face plants into her bosom and the thousands of days of chatter and shared undertakings. I wouldn't be suffering today if I hadn't stuffed my face daily with her grace. That I am suffering today is the price I pay for my gluttony and I can be police searched at any time night or day at any location and among other things they will not find is regret that I partnered with her. I have none.
So I have a question for you my friend. Do you believe there was a moment when Helen didn't know that you loved her so very deeply? I put it to you that she did not ever doubt it and that when she fished for reassurance you gave it to her and that in every way we all imagine what you both shared was love you both recognized clearly. That isn't all there is but that is the best there is. And you had that.
I'll tell you this George, I will never complain that eventually the things I love pass out of my life. But I understand very well the feeling that I wish I had done more. Things unfold the way they do and once they do they always did. It is our future that is not yet written and that can be anything. Rob a bank on impulse and you will quickly find that out.
......I want to thank you all for the kind comments and as I read them I'm thinking that you are all therapists, and very good at it. I guess that without realizing it, by telling my little story I was asking for help. And that's what I got. ......Thanks again..........GeorgieBoy
George...my hubby's name is George so I love your name.....What a thoughtful gift to do. It will make the person that receive your note do some thinking and his lovely partner will receive even more love because of what your wrote. From your writings I know your wife knew how much you loved her.
"I'm thinking that you are all therapists, and very good at it. I guess that without realizing it, by telling my little story I was asking for help. And that's what I got."
You don't get away with that much around here. Speaking just for myself I wasn't completely sure whether you were offering to start a discussion or reaching out.
I also doubt your genuine character has changed much from that picture of you and your wife where I told you that you're a good looking man. I know the desert inside George and I believe you continue partly on courage. You're not alone in that and you might take a glance around your latest postings and notice you are a well liked and popular man here as I pointed out the last time.
I can feel the sun on my face some days George just like it was and even though it's never just like it was anywhere where no man steps into the same river twice - there are things of value on offer.
Discover history on the internet. I've watched documentaries on the pacific war, on sink holes around the world, on the history of Japan, the story of the Magna Carta, where Jimmy Hoffa is, the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, the true escapades of Benjamin Franklin (a brilliant and naughty man I admire), the ring of fire of which San Andreas fault is part, the Japanese tsunami which is extensively documented, the baking of a zucchini loaf, the super cauldera in Yellowstone, the life of Glenn Miller, the real gangs of old new york, the houses of Lancaster and York, what fracking really is and how it works, endless National Geographic, BBC, PBS, NASA, and a host of other documentaries on everything from the walls of Jericho to the old spice and salt routes.
Why the internet? Because reading is great for those that like it where you can download books onto your notepads free from the library, but watching things, seeing things, listening to people talk, and all around something you have an interest in (it could be cooking, knitting, gardening, or pretty much whatever you can think of).
If you like I will put up links here to some of the things I've mentioned to get you started. In the meantime you are always welcome here where you are a chartered member and belong.
Rather than wait, when I was young I saw a documentary about the Algonquin Club called The Ten Year Lunch. It was where Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Harpo Marx, George Kaufman, the founder of the New Yorker, and other witty people who met there for lunch every day for 10 years while they ruled the media in the 1920's.
I looked for it for years and finally someone put it up early last year.
George, from what you wrote on this website, I can't believe that you believe your wife didn't know you loved her because you didn't tell her enough. When you truly love someone, that person knows it without having to be told often. Oh sure, it's nice to be told "I love you" occasionally but, as I said, one knows when one is loved and I believe she knew you loved her just by you being you. I so enjoy reading your posts, George.
Knowing you are loved is sitting in a room for an entire evening each absorbed in his/her own thoughts/reading/watching tv, being at peace and no words needing to be spoken and you are comfortable with just the presence of the other. When that is gone forever remembering those times and knowing love was there and not spoken but felt. George for all those years I'm sure your loved one knew without being told.
.....I've been reading these comments to the little story I told and am trying to understand why some of you say that you like my stories and Wolf even says that I'm popular here when all I'm really doing is just writing about things that have happened to me. I have no control over any of it. .....Different things happen to different people, and the only way I may be different than all of you is that I'm older. .....I consider it a blessing that Helen and I had lived the best years of our lives before this dementia stuff hit us, and when she passed, I was 91 (now almost 93), and I'm learning that being old has certain advantages. .....I find that people will like me no matter what I do or say Just because I'm old and I think that accounts for the nice comments about me on this site. Now I need to tell you another little story about what I can get away with just because I'm old. ------------------------------------------------------------------- .....Last Sunday morning I was shopping at the local supermarket and was ready to check out. There was only one check stand open out of eight and there were four customers with full carts ahead of me so I'm thinking I've got to do something about this. So I yelled out...pretty loud..."Hey!...We need to get another check stand opened up....There's a cranky old man standing in line here with four others ahead of him and the line is barely moving"...........Well...after that, there was deadly silence....Then I heard someone say......."We've got one coming"......... .....So another checker did appear and told the lady in front that she was next. Whereupon I heard the lady say, "Don't you think you should take care of the cranky old man first?"......Then we all started laughing, but the amazing thing was that no one was mad at me for my rude behavior. --------------------------------------------------------------------- .....Last but not least, I've got something to say about Wolf...After reading so much of his writing over the years I've been here, and as I'm looking over "The Ten Year Lunch" video that he gave us a link to, I'm thinking, What an amazing person this guy is....Here is a Canadian of German heritage and he knows more about the history and culture of America than I've ever dreamed of. Not only America, but the world in general....And he is responsible for me being here........I was lurking around here a long time and I came across a discussion where he was giving click by click instructions for posting here. So I said....I can do that, and I did. Another thing I like about Wolf is....He lets it all out there....Never holding anything back. .....Now I think I better quit or Joan will get mad at me for drifting way off topic.............GeorgieBoy
GeorgieBoy, there have been times I wish I had "a cranky old man" in the store when I was standing in line! I got a good laugh out of that. Thank you for sharing with us. We all love you.
Good grief, we don't just like you because you are "old." Whatever "old" means…age is just a number, and does not matter unless you happen to be a wine or a cheese. You are not an age, you are a person. : D
Loved your "cranky old man" story. Read it to my 2 daughters a minute ago and we all laughed. You probably made their day in the store. They all probably went home and told everyone they met about the cranky old man and had another good laugh.
Will pass that story along to my g-DIL who is a customer service/checker at a local grocery. She will love that! thanks for a laugh on a not so happy day as I move my sister to a nursing home.
You age has absolutely nothing to do with me loving every single thing you post. It is you as a human with a big heart that I respond to. I would have the same reaction if you were 40 years old.
Goerge you are an amazing soul. The notes that you write are very touching and bring back the memories of my grandpa and grandma. My grandma is not here now, and my grandpa is suffering from Dementia. He lives at Luvida Memory Care and gets sad sometimes thinking about his past. I'll pass on the posts of yours to him, just to give him a positive light.
The genie comes to you in a dream. I think it's a dream.
I can grant you a wish, the genie seems to say. I can grant you love beyond your wildest dreams in sanctity and lust that will astound you. I can give you this bliss for much of your life; but, there is a price.
She will leave this place before you and that will hollow you out beyond words for the rest of your days with only the memory of what once was.
Leon Redbone singing Ain't Misbehaving. If you don't know Leon Redbone from a squirrel, he's well thought of in his dedication to keeping the integrity of the earlier sounds in his current version interpretations.
I saw Leon Redbone in Salt Lake City in a club that no longer exists in a time where he wasn't all that popular. That probably is telling about how old I am but I loved him and his music.
I hurt myself today To see if I still feel I focus on the pain The only thing that's real The needle tears a hole The old familiar sting Try to kill it all away But I remember everything
What have I become My sweetest friend Everyone I know goes away In the end And you could have it all My empire of dirt I will let you down I will make you hurt
I wear this crown of thorns Upon my liar's chair Full of broken thoughts I cannot repair Beneath the stains of time The feelings disappear You are someone else I am still right here
What have I become My sweetest friend Everyone I know goes away In the end And you could have it all My empire of dirt I will let you down I will make you hurt
If I could start again A million miles away I would keep myself I would find a way
....
A lot of people think that's written by Johnny Cash in his song Hurt. It's written by Nine Inch Nails a massively loud hard rock band and even Johhny's wife in the video knows Johnny has it wrong. It's not about him. It's not about you. It's not about me. We are all travellers.
This is probably w-a-y off topic here, but I wanted to thank you for the link you put up for Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth. Not only did I watch the video, but I found a dozen or so others that I've saved as favorites, and watched over and over. My favorite is Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth - Storms in Africa. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pqivDnR-_s) It proves how timeless the dancing is when you can put it to current music and it doesn't miss a beat. I liked all these videos so much that I ordered a set of four Fred Astaire movies to watch during respite!
Jan K, it's good. I'm just poking things at George.
Here's Leon again but doing the closing title song for ELF. It's an oldie goldie called Baby It's Cold Outside. I just watched ELF and I cried because I love her in a way not that different from how George loves his Helen. Nothing will remove the pain in a life that is still beautiful.
Hey Wolf.......that link is a great happy story......... ......You really keep this place going. I love to read your stuff because It seems that you put your thoughts into words right off the top of your head. You let it all out. Never holding anything back. Others here, sometimes share their very personal feelings and I feel that I'm really getting to know them just like family. ......As for me, I'm a very slow writer and have to think about every word that I write. And I'm a very slow thinker, so I don't contribute very often. ......I did ....have a very merry Christmas and hope everyone here had the same, but I realize how difficult that would be for some of you. Keeping myself busy makes me happy and I'm finding that I can still learn things, and there's still a lot of things for me to learn. I recently learned how to make a link to a page on my little website so I'm sending you a link to one of my better stories.
I had trouble getting directly there. But I see the page has many changes and found your blueroom.
http://www.georgestreit.net/
You have been writing up a storm. Put me down beside the four year old with my hand up. I'm guilty of that too. Nit wit electric even with pictures and the turkey letters.
I knew from your early music you can feel the rhythms and I've been reading all morning here and you just keep writing there because your collection of things and your writings are good.
I recently watched a documentary I thought was great. I think it was called Finding Vivian Maier. A student doing a thesis bought some boxes of negatives at a storage auction hoping to get some pictures of chicago he could use. As he went through them he noticed a lot of the pictures seemed to be very good but he didn't find much to help him and he put the boxes aside.
He went back later because some of the pictures stuck in his mind and he put some developed pictures on the internet on Flickr and they got tons of attention. So he went back to the storage auction place and talked to the other people that bought boxes from the same storage locker and he bought those from them.
He was becoming obsessed with finding out who the person was who took these pictures. While he was trying to put the clues together to the photographer's identity he developed some 50 of her photographs, put them into frames and got to put on a show at the local gallery. It got a tremendous response because the photos were all so good.
To make a long story short he did a lot of detective work and found out the person was Vivian Maier who worked as a nanny for a long string of children including Phil Donohue at one time. What became clear when the other boxes revealed endless rolls of film was that this lady used the position of nanny to take her photographs. And that if he hadn't gone through his own circumstances and then obsessively pursued her story, none of her work would likely have been seen.
Do a search of images for Vivian Maier and take a look. Nobody ever really knew much about her she was such a private person. Just a ship that almost passed in the night which happens all the time I'm sure.
The trait I value most in other people and always look for is unbiased curiosity. Curiosity is what gets me through the day, so I am delighted when Wolf posts what seem to be off-the-wall, off topic curious nuggets of information that when examined, reflect a bit of our lives.
When I was a kid information was available mostly via the World Book Encyclopedia and the library, so satisfying curiosity required some serious work. One of the wonders of our modern world is the access we have to information and media of every kind. We just belly up to a smorgasbord of information, movies, documentaries, books, web links, music, art. Really, it is dizzying and addicting.
Wolf, thank you for adding the richness of the fruits of your curiosity. It reminds us all that we are still alive and the mind is a wondrous thing that we should continue to nourish. Daily we make deals with Death (that guy in the big black hoodie) who seems to be stalking us constantly and mocking our existence by making us watch our spouses die.
How do we keep Death from claiming us too? For me it is firing up the light in my mind with unbiased curiosity in our world. Wolf takes it to a new level by writing about seemingly random subjects and weaving it all together with personal history and tidbits from a curious mind.
You guys are great writers and I know that great writers have to be great thinkers......I love to read your stuff and you are so right about curiosity. .........When some medical university asked Einstein if they could have his brain after he died, he told them they could have it but it was do different than the usual. He told them that the only thing different about him was that he was always intensely and passionately curious. Once when he seemed to be deeply in thought, his wife asked him "What are you thinking about dear?' His reply...."If I was traveling at the speed of light, What would I see?' ........Now I'm curious about Vivian Mayer........I need to find out about her.
Number 1 - All human beings I've ever met and all human beings I've ever read about are more fragile than Robin's eggs. They are strong if you push them along one axis; but, crack from every other direction. Every human being you've ever read about is fiction unless the work itself is footnoted and the explanations are exhaustive and then we only know the Kennedy we already saw fleshed out more. If you're a republican then you see he and his brother bopping Marylin in the oval office and if you're a democrat he was camelot.
From Spitzer through Wiener the world is teeming with the self deluded who can't remember they said this thing in Iowa while saying that thing in Philly or that the person they're now stepping on has incriminating evidence of things they're denying in public.
Number 2 - Every human being is a little baby with an unending need for attention where any amount of attention becomes the norm and now they need more than that. What does getting almost everything in life do to the majority of humans? It ups their need levels through the roof and they go spinning off into space. Not everyone. Just most.
Number 3 - The vast majority of human beings are driven by their comfort zone and their needs and the other half of that is that all people who are driven by their comfort zone and their needs change the facts, drop facts, and shuffle facts so that is achieved. Wait. They also 'forget' they do that no matter how many times the people around them point it out.
...
So, I am a little baby that needs all the attention I can get on a normal basis and whopping more now at this time and I delight in every acknowledgment that I not only exist but that someone said something nice about me or (the best) that I am bright and smart and stuff.
But life has taught me that I actually am eccentric. I don't let Wolf the adult do that much and I never let him drive. Wolf the adult is looking to define himself in life and that is so bogus and laughable that in 64 years no role and no definition has gotten a foothold. I laugh out loud because it's so overwhelmingly self evident that all such nonsense is Wolf padding around and around his bed before he lays down content which is what a dog does.
Wolf the adult doesn't want to think about getting old or dying. It scares me when I think of that in the same way Joan Rivers would look at the audience knowing they got the joke but were squriming. Suspend disbelief yes. Forget you really are in a theatre no.
So Viagra sales soar for the elderly who have actually lost most of their interest in the rutting that was so important at first where most of the women are post menopause which often means more dryness and there's four hours of the tower of piza courtesy of the need to believe in the absurd.
End of table setting.
I had a love too few experience. I know this because I can hear the inflections and the chatter between people which so often discussion later proves most others studiously ignored. In fourty years we never had a serious argument and had only a handful of arguments at all. We were best friends who genuinely liked each other and cared. Neither of us should take credit for that because it just was the way we were together. Very lucky is what we were bottom line.
So what's important here Wolf? Get to the point.
"Very lucky is what we were bottom line." Fourty years of that. If that's not enough then I suck. Bottom line. Well I feel so bad says Wolf. Shut up and start carrying. God, I'm like a child. Wait, I mean adult.
Of course I feel terrible. How could I not? What has that got to do with anything except the weather?
....
Scene: Saint Peter's gates. Lots of clouds and light and a pedestal with a very large book open. There is an attendant there not unlike a greeter. He looks at the book and addresses the person before him.
Attendant: "I see you're one of the ones that endured a real hardship and suffered it in duty. That must have been very hard on you."
Person: "I guess so."
Attendant: "So what did you do with the rest of your life?"
Person: "I spent it feeling sorry."
Attendant: [kindly] "Well not so much 'guess so' then."
......
The point, George, isn't how someone writes. It's that you and I are sisters in one way and it should already be apparent what I'm doing here. You can miss Helen while you open up. They're not in conflict.
So here it is. When I take my experiences in life more seriously than my life then I have lost my way. It's weak minded to be deflected by the 'my' and I'll prove that now. When I take experiences in life more seriously than life itself then I have lost my way. I suffer them. Which is not the same thing.
Wolf ...... You are to much for me. I can't even begin to make a meaningful comment on your writings. I printed them out using your cut, paste to notepad and print directions. So now I can study them. But I basically agree with everything you wrote. Your thoughts and feelings are right from your heart. ......A lot of your thinking is way over my head, but I appreciate your thoughts and sometimes I can actually get it. I just need a little time to think cause I'm such a slow thinker.........GeorgieBoy
Hi George, There is nothing wrong with being a slow thinker. Sadly, many people nowadays think so fast that their thoughts do not travel through their brains and come out of their mouths before they are fully formed.
I had wanted to tell you earlier, but forgot, that I really enjoyed the Turkey Letters. I felt bad for the family that had to get out of the turkey business because they could not replace the tom that those boys stole. A severe consequence for what may have seemed to the boys as a small crime.
HI George: I too fit your "moth to a flame" analogy."
I've been very fortunate, thanks the guidance of a Hospice Grief Counselor her thoughts:
"From all I've heard You enjoyed a 53 year marriage. Married at 17 & 19 and enjoying the success you both did is inspirational.... You cared for DW singled handed until her final 2 weeks.,,, Realize that you've been grieving since diagnosis 7 years ago. DW's mother had it too and you both cared for her. You knew what the future held first hand............ Your wife hasn't known who you are for years. You're 72 years old, don't curl up in a fetal ball... go out and live enjoy every day!!!!!! I took her advise and began to date.
Long story short, my GF and I live a continuum of "I never thought I'd feel this way again"
We were out Saturday night, the same restaurant where we met at for our first date. BTW we haven't parted company since that first week. Feb 17th will be one year. We must have been sending a vibe much like you describe in your initial post, the one that caused you the leave a note. No identifying note was left...... served with our desert was a split of champagne. The waiter just said a gift from a couple and that he was to say:
"It's been a joy for us to observe the love and happiness you two radiate. You made our night special too." The waiters lips were sealed as to who sent us the bottle , and none of the other diners revealed a telling glance of acknowledgment.
Clink went our glasses !!
At the age of 74 sipping champagne and air kissing cross the table, me????
Hey Marty. ......What a great happy story. You are a perfect example of the person whom I would have given the note to. Happiness does radiate. Just like sunshine. You can't contain it. When I was your age I think I radiated my share and now I'm doing my best to spread a little more by just being friendly and outgoing to everyone I meet. Especially If someone appears to be down and lonely. ......I said I wasn't going to give out any more notes, But I just passed out another one yesterday. I still have the notes in my truck, and somehow they find their way into my shirt pocket. Maybe I'm making a fool of myself but I'll be a happy fool. ......As Wolf says "There's a lot of good in life.....We just have to find it"...........GeorgieBoy
George You have the BEST attitude on life! I admire your optimism and willingness to share with others.
Keep spreading your notes. If you feel like it ever, you can just leave out your regrets part. I don't think you need to have regrets. Your life was a lucky woman and so were you.
John Bayley, a don at Oxford has died. Here is part of his obituary from the Economist, Jan 31, 2015:
"When he had tucked his wife, Dame Iris Murdoch, the great novelist, into bed, registering from her expression of sweet content that Dr Alzheimer had been temporarily banished by sleep, John Bayley would go downstaris. There, at the kitchen table, he would pour himself a drink and find a book to read. Among the piles of unwashed plates, papers, and pill packets - and, somewhere, a large pork pie which they had put down and never seen again - would be a Jane Austin or a Barbara Pym, well-worn and ever welcome.
As he read, though, his thoughts would start to wander, first ambling and then running, like a horse let out in a field. He had held them back all day, of necessity, as Iris had rattled the front door crying to escape, or fought against putting on her shoes. Now he did not resist them. Like the devil Belial in "Paradise Lost", he surrendered to open-ended daydreaming.
For who would lose Though full of pain, this intellectual being, These thoughts that wander through eternity?
In some ways their lives altered little when Iris, in 1995, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. They withdrew all the more into their own worlds, but still met at the ever-more-squalid kitchen table, where he would feed her baked beans and ice cream and where they would communicate in faint pulsations and echoes, like the sonorities of whales.
Clearly he could not cope, but he refused all help for four years, recording the Iris who had vanished in two unsparing memoirs and treasuring each rare, surviving smile. For what remained amid his wandering thoughts, the not-quite-truths and daydreamings, was what Henry James called "the strangely accepted finality of relationship", a solid core of love."