THE LONG GOODBYE
For those who love someone with Alzheimer's or other forms of Dementia, it's often referred to as THE LONG GOODBYE It can be hard to hang onto hope in the face of so much uncertainty and the sense of loss and grief that accompanies the diagnosis.
One thing that is helping me face all the uncertainty of the long goodbye is my faith. Thankfully Tom's condition is fairly stable with his medication regimen. It's been nearly 2 years since the first episode Tom had that prompted referrals for testing and evaluations that resulted in a diagnosis of Vascular Dementia and more recently Early Alzheimer's. In response to a question to an online bible study I was doing last year, I journaled on 7/28/21:
"What has been shaking your world lately? How can you cling to God's unshakable Kingdom in the midst of your current circumstances?"
My husband's dementia diagnosis shook up and turned my world upside down a year+ ago. It still results in me having panic attacks that leave me shaking, though not as often. It's getting easier to trust God to provide for us and hold us both in his care. My husband is still my husband, but little by little pieces of him are fading away. The one thing that has helped the most is the realization that each piece lost is actually a footstep closer to his heavenly home, into the arms of God. For a man who loved his God since childhood and served Jesus as a pastor for decades, resting in God's arms, seeing Jesus face to face, I can find joy in the knowledge that little by little every day he's on his way to his REAL home in Heaven. I count it as Joy in the midst of my own sadness at slowly losing my partner, best friend and soulmate these past 49 years of our marriage.