It’s been
nearly 2½ years, but I’ve still been having difficulty fulfilling Clare’s final
wish for me ... she wanted me to find “continued happiness” after she was gone.
Psychologists
have written about how the loss of a husband or wife in an extremely close
marriage can be particularly difficult for the surviving spouse. I can count on the fingers of one hand the
number of married couples I’ve known with a marriage as strong as ours. Clare and I were truly each other’s best
friend and we needed no one else to be with to make each day special.
Three months
ago, in Personal Blog #7, I described 4 steps I had taken to move out of my
comfort zone to try to find more happiness in my life. I had hoped that joining a nighttime bowling
league, facilitating another AD spouse support group, joining an online dating
site, and starting a relationship with another woman might bring me greater
happiness and less loneliness. Some of
these steps were successful, some were not, additional new steps were taken,
and collectively these steps have resulted in a happier and less lonely life.
I am
continuing to bowl in my Wednesday afternoon and Thursday evening leagues, but
I quit my Friday morning league to join a Friday evening league, and I also joined
a Monday evening league. I’m already
enjoying my new evening leagues and am pleased to be spending fewer nights,
alone, at home.
When asked to serve as a volunteer support
group facilitator, I was told that the Association wanted to take advantage of
my AD experience and knowledge base, and I truly looked forward to helping caregivers. But after being told that I could not support
caregivers the way I felt they should be supported, I chose to step down as
facilitator. Running afoul of the Association’s
“no contact/no advice” rules seemed especially ironic since the Association had
praised me for my AD opinions and advice when given as a featured speaker at their
annual caregiver conference.
In retrospect, however, leaving my
facilitator role may have been another positive step. I decided that my 100th AD article,
published last month by Annals of
Long-Term Care, will be my last AD article. I have also decided that I will no longer give
AD presentations to caregivers, doctors or medical students. If I am no longer facilitating AD spouse
caregiver support groups, and no longer writing or speaking about AD, maybe I will
be able to move on more easily with my new life.
Joining an
internet dating site was very valuable because it helped me clarify the kind of
relationship I was seeking. Women on
that site were looking for love in long-term serious relationships, but that is
not what I want. I’m not looking to
“fall in love” again. In my heart, I
still am ... and always will be ... deeply in love with and married to
Clare. I also know that I can never be
in a relationship where I could possibly end up as a 24/7 caregiver ... I couldn’t
handle that again. My time on that dating
site reinforced that all I want going forward is a “friend with moderate benefits” ... a
special woman to be with several times a month to enjoy companionship and a
moderate physical relationship ... but nothing more serious than that.
I am taking other
new steps to move out of my comfort zone. For example, I’ve signed up for a “Lifelong
Learning Lecture Series” given at my local community center. I’ve also started flying again, for the first
time in nearly 10 years, and already have tickets for future flights to visit
with family and friends. In addition, I’m
now checking out some river cruises for summer travel.
In my April/2016 piece in The Huffington Post, “Not Ready to Move On,” posted only hours
before Clare died, I wrote that “I want to ... and
need to ... maintain my emotional connection with Clare for as long as
possible. If that delays my moving on,
so be it.” When I wrote that article,
despite my strong love for Clare, I didn’t think it would take me too long to move on after her death. After all, I thought, I had already been grieving for nearly three years, living alone,
feeling more widowed than married.
But I was wrong.
Very wrong. Clare’s death hit me
like a ton of bricks. Despite my years
of “anticipated grief,” accepting her loss was painful beyond words.
In
“Inspirational Thoughts for Alzheimer’s Caregivers, Widows, and Widowers” (AFA Care Quarterly, Spring/2017) I wrote
about how Katy Perry’s song, “By the Grace of God,” got me through my darkest moments
before and after Clare died. As I battled with depression, anger, guilt, and other emotions, there
were many days when I felt as if I were down on the floor and out for the
count, questioning if I even wanted to continue living. Perry’s words in that song ... “I picked
myself back up, I knew I had to stay, I put one foot in front of the other, I looked in
the mirror and decided to stay” ... could have been describing me. Words such as “running on empty, so
out of gas,” perfectly expressed how I felt.
But Perry also sang, “I am not giving up” ... and those words always won
out.
Someone I love very
much recently shared with me these words attributed to Rosemary Kennedy: “It has been said, 'time heals all
wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds
remain. In time, the mind, protecting
its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”
Clare’s last few years of life, but especially her death,
left me with deep painful wounds and frequent periods of overwhelming sadness and tears. Recent successful steps
to move out of my comfort zone, however, have greatly lessened that pain. I feel happier, and less lonely, than I’ve felt
in quite a few years. Maybe now I will be lucky enough to fulfill
Clare’s final wish for me ... continued happiness.
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Note to readers: I
haven’t decided yet if I will post new Personal Blogs on this website. If interested, please check back in 3-6
months to see if I have written more about moving on with my life. As always, should you want to comment on what
I’ve written and would like me to respond, please email me at
acvann@optonline.net.
