Some eight years ago, a couple of years after my husband started to show signs of dementia, he went on the Pilgrimage to Santiago de la Compostela in Northern Spain, which a friend organised with a group of four other very supportive friends. My husband loved walking, and they walked about 150 miles in three weeks. He went, I think, for the challenge and to see the places, but came back and started attending church regularly every Sunday almost up to the time he was finally admitted to hospital.
I am not a churchgoer, but when he got too confused to be safe by himself, I walked him to church and collected him. I knew some people there who would keep an eye on him, including one of the churchwardens whose husband had suffered from Alzheimers, but was by then in a home, but I got the distinct impression that his occasional moves from one pew to another were frowned on, and I know that when he first went with his friend, they were ticked off in no uncertain terms for sitting in someone else's pew - I thought that went out with feudalism!
My husband had been a choirboy as a lad, but had shown no interest in religion since then. Although I have a deep interest in spiritual matters, across all religions, I was brought up as a Methodist and felt very ill at ease with the importance placed on ritual observed in this particular "high" Anglican church, and just couldn't go in with him after a couple of attempts.
I respect other people's religious beliefs, and have occasionally been known to put up a prayer to whatever power exists in the universe, but find that Buddhist thought, with Christianity as a pretty good rough guide to how to behave to others, is the path that most nearly approaches what I feel. I'm still wrestling with it, and guess I always will.
I was very interested in what BJ said about the temporal lobe. My husband presented a real problem in diagnosis (and is still diagnosed as having "atypical" Alzheimers - this from real experts at the National Hospital for Neurology) - and his current psychiatrist freely admits they don't really know what it is. However, until about two years ago, it was thought that his disease was located in the fronto-temporal region until he started to show signs of more generalised brain disease.
Now a rant... Being more used to Methodism, (my mother is a regular attender, and I have occasionally accompanied her to church), and knowing how her minister and congregation look out for each other, I became gradually more aware that nobody from his church had visited him in hospital, not even the priest. I finally got a postcard put through the door at home from the priest six months after my husband had been admitted, saying that he had called but nobody was in, and hoping that my husband was well! I was feeling quite ill by then, and although I must admit that my first reaction was to phone up and give the vicar an earful, I really didn't have the energy, and now I regard anger as a waste of time.
I have asked if the hospital chaplain could give communion to my husband, as even if he isn't really aware now of what it is all about, I feel that if it was important to him before, then he shouldn't be denied it now, even if his rediscovery of religious belief was physical in origin.
Rant over - thanks for listening.
Ruthie