Jan's Story by Barry Petersen

Author:Barry Petersen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Behler Publications, LLC

TIMELINE

Spring, 2008

Barry's update to family and friends

There are changes I know are coming and I dread; and one has now arrived. Jan is losing her long-term memory. One of Jan's favorite stories is about birthdays … her Dad, her brother Doug and I were all born on January 14th. She was amazed when we discovered this early in our courtship, and it remains her touchstone for why we were fated to be together. The other night at dinner she remembered that there is a “birthday” story and asked me to tell it because she could no longer summon up the details.

I am not sure about sharing these thoughts. I was taught as a good Danish Lutheran child that we just push on and not draw attention to ourselves. But some of you have suggested that knowing what is happening helps understand a disease that we are seeing around us more and more. So I bare something of me, and apologies if it seems too personal. I am not sure how else to share this. Through these past few years, I have lived by one mandate; Jan is paramount in all our thoughts and cares. She is the one with Alzheimer's.

My focus remains getting her good care and the help to battle this—such as having people like Diane, our live-in caregiver, who gets her out of the house and exploring new things. But this disease does not limit itself to one person. Quite the opposite—it takes from all around, especially from those of us too blind to see what it is doing to us. In this case it was my daughter, Julie, who saw and put it succinctly when I saw her over Christmas. She leaned across the table at lunch and told me I was “weary in my soul.” And she is right.

Part of it is the simple mechanics of running our daily life—I monitor and pay all the bills, make all the travel arrangements, gently make sure Jan has packed appropriate clothes for a trip, and help her choose from a restaurant menu when she gets lost somewhere in confusion and indecision. But my weariness comes, I think, from a darkness that I discovered is stalking me—loneliness. I have lots of friends. But I no longer have Jan. It sounds like a bad line from a movie. If only. I still remember the moment I knew that I wanted to be with Jan for the rest of my life. I was driving in a car after visiting her tiny little lakeside apartment in Seattle one evening when it hit me. In my memory, it felt like an earthquake, like something actually shook the car, and in fact, I had to pull the car over. I knew then—with total clarity and for certain—that I needed her in my life, that any sacrifice was nothing compared to being with her, so full of life. (And so darn cute!)

I hear people say that marriage is “hard,” that you have to “work” at marriage.

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