Over the past week there have been many threads about people’s feelings towards their parents or those of their OH's.who have some form of dementia. And I have been struck with the difference there is between that situation and that of people like myself, whose OH's, after a long happy marriage, are affected. The main difference I believe is in our attitude to death.
I am concerned here with those who have been fortunate enough to have had say 50+ years together. Age, both of the carer and the cared is an important factor. At 70+ years, your ability to deal with the effects of dementia are seriously reduced, and your resilience to setbacks dwindles away. I have been told that we older people should count our blessings for having had long married lives. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, that doesn’t cut much ice, when you’re sitting alone in an empty flat, and your wife is in a CH. because you were unable to provide her care. When you have been together for 60+ years separation is almost unbearable.
On other threads, there has been some discussion about death.
For myself death holds no terrors, indeed I would welcome it. But I am very concerned that, were I to go first, my wife would not understand and would be very frightened. She would have nobody to fight her corner and provide her few moments of enjoyment. So, I pray for her to die before me, thus she would not have to face the world without my support. I would rather it was sooner rather than later. I hope that I may be forgiven, but I do wish for my wife to die. She would then be spared the pain and indignities of the later stages of this merciless disease. And so would I, and I could then let go. Our two lives, at the moment are mere existence, no more.
I wish this because of my love for her, I can’t bear to think of her, alone and defenceless without me.
I am concerned here with those who have been fortunate enough to have had say 50+ years together. Age, both of the carer and the cared is an important factor. At 70+ years, your ability to deal with the effects of dementia are seriously reduced, and your resilience to setbacks dwindles away. I have been told that we older people should count our blessings for having had long married lives. At the risk of sounding ungrateful, that doesn’t cut much ice, when you’re sitting alone in an empty flat, and your wife is in a CH. because you were unable to provide her care. When you have been together for 60+ years separation is almost unbearable.
On other threads, there has been some discussion about death.
For myself death holds no terrors, indeed I would welcome it. But I am very concerned that, were I to go first, my wife would not understand and would be very frightened. She would have nobody to fight her corner and provide her few moments of enjoyment. So, I pray for her to die before me, thus she would not have to face the world without my support. I would rather it was sooner rather than later. I hope that I may be forgiven, but I do wish for my wife to die. She would then be spared the pain and indignities of the later stages of this merciless disease. And so would I, and I could then let go. Our two lives, at the moment are mere existence, no more.
I wish this because of my love for her, I can’t bear to think of her, alone and defenceless without me.