Wow, hospice. My Mom is not that far along. But far enough, at sundowning time, to ask me every five minutes: “Is Eliza Smith here?” Yeah, she knows my name but can’t get the face and name together. And she asks me to take her home to this address we live at all the time…
I, too am looking at a second marraige, in the new year, Lordwilling. We are in different states now and we both have not dated these years after our long bad marriages (where we had our children). Neither of us was looking for anyone but God had other plans and we could not avoid them! My marraige is null now and we just found out his annulment (we have good reason to expect it to go through) will still be “a few months” - we’d hoped it would be this October since it will have been a year… In spite of feeling so impatient this summer, I do feel peace about that. My son has his last year of high school and needs to be launched for college, so I can focus on one thing at a time.
After trying to juggle work and caregiving, and single parenting, I finally realized it was too much, and this year I am opting to be the caregiver, getting paid what we were paying the day worker so I could go to work (and make pretty much what we were paying her!). My work was caregiver-like, too, and I came home tired, to her sundowning and my own life to take care of after being at work all day.
So I just started staying at home, and I work one predictable day outside the house each week. I am so much happier. Mom is so much more peaceful during the day, and I can keep her busy while I take care of the home.
I want to join in our local Alzheimer caregiver/patient outings one day a week and get to know other caregivers and get ideas. I started Mom on two “jobs”, on folding washcloths, and another stringing Cheerios “for the birds”] and especially the latter is great for her. I need more ideas…
My “fiance” (it feel presumptuous to call him that, as, we are not both annulled yet) when he visits here from his state helps me with my Mom and its great. It is going to be so wonderful to have someone I love to live life with. It sounds like you had that for 15 years… It still is such an awesome gift from God that just amazes me. We are older, and he is 12 years older than me and already retired, but heading back to work, and we need some serious financial planning for our future, which we are at work on. But the challenges are all okay to face because we do it together and we just like being together. God truly gave us as a gift to each other, after many difficult and lonely years. We both had come to peace about aloneness, but God showed us that he wanted something else for us both.
Both being older, it is a big question what the future might hold, so we will cherish every day we get. You say you had 15 years with your wife before the Alzheimers? Because I think 15 years would be great. Hopefully longer!
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Yummy!!!