I really miss my husband.  I know I am lucky to have him doing as well as he is, five years after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and I feel a bit guilty even saying this, but hey, that’s what this blog is for – true honesty about my feelings and experiences.

Charles and I have been together about a decade.  We met online, and I loved his candor, his humor, his intelligence, and (to be honest) his writing skills.  We poured our our hearts to each other.  I was widowed at 50, and ready for a relationship a couple of years later.  He was divorced twice, once after a long-term marriage and once after a brief why-the-hell-did-I-do-this marriage.  Charles was energetic, hard-working, skillful, intellectually engaged, and a pure delight.  Soon we were head-over-heels in love, the kind of love I had known when I met my first husband as a teenager and didn’t think I would find again.  We have been companions, partners in some of our work, passionate lovers, and contented householders.

We still love each other truly, and I am very grateful for that.  Charles’essential sweetness is still there, and his personality is still evident.  But there are things that bring me to tears.

I miss his playfulness with words and his enjoyment of funny things – it’s hard to have much of a sense of humor when you can’t quite wrap your brain around what is happening.  When I tell a joke or talk about something funny, by the time I explain it, the fun is gone (and he frequently still can’t see the humor).  He is often emotionally flat, not reacting with joy as he would in the past, and rarely bantering in the way that I found so charming.  (I have learned that this is fairly typical of people with Alzheimer’s.)

I miss talking to him about anything and everything.  Most of our conversation is one-sided now, hampered by his trouble in finding and understanding words.  Often that means I feel very lonely.  He wants to be supportive, but it is hard when he doesn’t know what I am talking about, despite my efforts to explain and provide context.

Without getting too personal, let’s just say that dementia tends to take away a person’s libido. As our relationship changes, it is hard to feel sexy (it’s a gap between “It’s time to cut your fingernails, darling, they are getting too long” and “I want to make passionate love with you”).  I also miss spontaneous hugs, kisses, and cuddles.  Charles enjoys those, but doesn’t initiate them, and that matters to me.

I miss gifts.  Not mink coats or trips to Paris, but the yellow roses Charles bought for me and the little earrings he picked out on special occasions.  I have tried to remind him and help him, and last Christmas a kind female friend took him shopping for a few little items for me, but I think I need to just let this go.  It is stressful for him to even participate in trying to get me a gift.

I miss working on writing projects together.  He will sit patiently with me and sometimes contribute, but it is not the same.

I miss my handyman.  My dad was the world’s least-handy person, and my first husband was equally helpless with a hammer or screwdriver, I loved having my own “Mr. Fix-It.”  Charles not only made repairs quickly and competently, but he was creative in coming up with solutions for a variety of problems around the house and the yard.  Now I either have to struggle to figure things out, or hire someone to do it.

So I have to learn to see what is there, and not what has faded or disappeared entirely.  I need to tune in to the present reality rather than focus on the past.  I must overcome my self-pity and self-absorption, while acknowledging that I do have a right to grieve.  Here we are.  I am grateful Charles can still care for himself with prompting, is physically well, and has a kind heart.  While the expression of his love for me is changed, I know it is still there.  I have to create the best life we can have together now.

My darling husband and I were sitting in a lovely restaurant ordering breakfast this morning.  Five minutes later, I was sniffling and looking frantically for a Kleenex in my purse.  It was all because of the eggs.

Charles was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s five years ago.  He is a kind, sweet, loving man.  Sometimes his Alzheimer’s symptoms drive me nuts, though, and I know it will only get worse.

Alzheimer’s has robbed Charles of his ability to speak fluently in certain situations, one of which is ordering food in a restaurant. It has also made him less flexible in his thinking, more dogmatic, and more stubborn.  I don’t mind helping him by ordering for him, which he has asked me to do.  I don’t mind that he basically wants a fried-egg-and-sausage breakfast or a burger-and-fries lunch or dinner when we go out, because I know it is challenging for him to remember or imagine other meals in that setting.  I didn’t even mind that after eating breakfast at the same place the day before (we were traveling, and this was the hotel restaurant), he was upset because they fried the eggs together rather than separately.  But when he became upset because I wouldn’t explain to the waiter that he wanted the eggs some other way that he could not articulate (and that I did not understand), and he raised his voice, and I saw the confusion and pity on the face of the young waiter, I lost it.

I wish I were more patient and less sensitive.  I wish I didn’t get so upset about silly things.  I wish I could focus completely on Charles’ confusion and frustration and not on my own.  I wish I didn’t feel like grinding my teeth when the eggs arrived, he continued to grouse about them (although they were exactly the same as a thousand fried eggs he has eaten since we have been together), and then he finally said, “I guess these are okay the way they are.”  I wish my emotions would trot along with my compassion and understanding, instead of breaking the harness and running away.  I wish the damn eggs hadn’t ruined the meal.