I previously wrote a column about the fact that my wife and best friend has Early Onset Alzheimer’s, a crippling disease which has rendered her essentially a quadriplegic over the course of a few, agonizing years. She has gone from a vibrant and athletic and witty lady to someone who cannot rise from bed or feed herself, in what seems at times the blink of an eye and at others to have been over the course of a long, cruel lifetime.

 The last 20 months she has lived at “the Manor”, a small and comfortable nursing facility. Those of us closest to J call it “the Manor” because it lessens the starkness of her predicament and is easier to say than “nursing home”.

The Manor is located about half way between our home and my office, 10-15 minutes from each, both a blessing and a curse. Obviously, it is convenient and facilitating, but also a constant source of guilt – why am I not there more? Shouldn’t I run by now? The location lends itself to (almost always) daily visits, but most of short duration because of the frustration and sadness and helplessness that accompany seeing your soulmate as an invalid who can say only a few words at the best of times and is in continual decline into oblivion. I often think of the old folk song “Man of Constant Sorrow”, done by Bob Dylan among others.

So I think I have made my point that there is not a lot of joy or hope that comes out of this experience. Constant visits to a nursing home, even if you try to fool yourself by calling it “the Manor”, and even when you try to make it part of your daily routine, are draining and test your strength and resolve to go on. But there was a ray of sunshine (a burst in fact), a source of hope and joy, because of Joyce’s roommate Anna. I wrote of Anna earlier, of the support she gave both to Joyce and to me, of her optimism, of the fun she shared with Joyce’s friends when they visited, of her straightforward approach to life, of her trust in God. She was wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, friend, factory worker, businesswoman, farmer, practicing nurse (in her 40’s). She brought out the best in Joyce, communicating with her through patience and love when others could not.  She could get smiles and even laughs out of J.  I called her the “Alzheimer’s whisperer”. She liked to say “bloom where you are planted”. She certainly did to the very end. 

Within the last few months, at age 88, Anna had me reading daily devotions to her and Joyce, she read biographies of Queen Elizabeth and JFK and Frank Sinatra (arguing with me that Sinatra was an even better actor than singer), organized and held a book signing party to autograph the book she wrote on her “West Virginia Family”, provided support to other residents who were scared or bewildered. She continued to “bloom where she was planted”, to “make a small difference if you no longer can make a big one.”

It is 6 in the morning and I have just learned that Anna passed around midnight. I am writing this while both crying and smiling. She was the best friend my wife never knew.  

(First published several years ago. J died in 2018.)