A Caregiver Remembers:

By Larry Peterson

Prelude: This is about Dementia. I have witnessed, as have millions of others, the President of the United States, stumbling and mumbling and seemingly in a daze for months. Ongoing discussions absorb the news cycle about his cognition and his mental acuity and so forth. This ongoing drama is, for me, disheartening and sad. Those in charge have allowed this man and his  illness to turn into a circus of deplorability. The many who have walked my walk will understand my feelings.

I was the caregiver to an Alzheimer’s victim. I cared for her during the four years it took to kill her. There are various causes of dementia, Alzheimer's Disease is the most prevalent. In my wife’s case she had Alzheimer’s Disease. There are others such as Vascular Dementia, Lewy Body Dementia, Frontotemporal Dementia, Alcohol related Dementia and others. This link on types of dementia will help you understand a bit more.

What follows was written by me in 2014 and updated. 

The “Journey of the Long Goodbye”

By Larry Peterson

Alzheimer’s Disease is sarcastically called the “Journey of the Long Goodbye.” That is because once it grabs hold of someone it never lets go. The course of the illness can range anywhere from 3 to 15 years or longer. It cannot be slowed, it cannot be driven into remission and it definitely cannot be cured.  It remains a pariah feeding on its select host until it kills them. Treatments and potential cures are feverishly being researched, but the answers are still evasive. It is, in my opinion, among the worst diseases (if not the worst) a person may fall ill to. I believe that it makes a person a stranger to themselves.

For about three years I had been watching this disease slowly and robotically erase the mind of Martha, my wife and best friend. All I could do was stand by helplessly as the steady “woosh-woosh” of that eraser inside her head move silently back and forth doing its unstoppable damage. In effect, I had a front row seat watching an innocent person being methodically pulled into a world of nothingness. A visible darkness was her future. It was something I did not understand.

My first wife, Loretta, died of melanoma in 2003. She also suffered from chronic pancreatitis, diabetes and lupus. I became her caregiver and even learned how to administer her IVs and give her injections.  No problem. However, she never fell victim to the illness known as Alzheimer’s  Disease. That was a world I had only heard of, but now I had.

Marty and I knew each other from church where we were both members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. She was a widow and about two years after Loretta passed, we went out to dinner together. We eventually went through the entire pre-nuptial requirements as prescribed by the Catholic Church and married in 2006. We were an unlikely couple but, our relationship was centered around our faith and our God.  He, in return, gave us to each other in marriage.  Having faith is the greatest gift (and possibly the most fragile) any of us can ever receive.  As for me, I have leaned on it and use it as much as I can.

Marty had played the piano since she was a child and was quite an accomplished pianist. She was so good at it that she was substituting as the organist at her church when she was in sixth grade. Anyway, during the summer and fall of 2014 she spent time in and out of the hospital. A concern of mine was that she might not remember how to play. I had asked the professionals about this and was told that she will actually forget how.  A few days after she was home from the rehab center those concerns were temporarily put to rest.

I was back in my cluttered, paper strewn home office staring at the computer monitor when piano music began filling the house. I leaned back, smiled and began to listen to Marty play. After a few moments I realized the music was a bit different. This was not the usual Marty.  No, this was a transcendent Marty playing the most beautiful music I had ever heard her play. “Autumn Leaves” filled the rooms followed by “That Old Feeling” and then, my favorite, Chopin’s Major in E Flat. I was now watching from the hallway and saw that she was lost within that music that she was bringing forth from that old piano.

Watching her play was like watching one of God’s magnificent flowers breaking into full bloom. Realizing that these moments were now fleeting and might soon be no more, I began recording her with my smart-phone. I figured that if she did forget how to play and did not recognize the piano or maybe even me, the music would still be here. That is when I would play it for her. Maybe, just maybe, from whatever world her mind has traveled, she will pause, listen and smile. I will smile back realizing I have been blessed with the honor and pleasure of taking care of one of God’s special people.

I will end this by reminding everyone that Joseph R. Biden is one of God’s special people too. Like him or not, it does not matter. He has been swallowed up by a demon that has no mercy. Sadly, it seems that all those who claim to care for him have lost sight of his God given humanity. His ability to be POTUS is gone. It is obvious. It is time for those who truly love him to step to the plate. It is time to take him home. He exists in a place no one understands. What he needs is love and prayers. The rest of it does not matter---any of it.

Copyright©2024 Larry Peterson