Okay, that's a lie, but I won't laugh as hard about the jokes I make. Well, that might be a lie too. Anyway, this post is about how i cried all the way through Away From Her. All the way through, to the point where i thought Chad was just going to shut off the movie. You would have thought we were watching Schindler's List. My husband caught on to the reason behind the crying right away and started this dialogue:
"I am not going to get Alzheimers!"
To which I responded, "What are you talking about you already can't put on matching socks."
"That's totally different"
"You have the short term memory of goldfish, I find you wandering around the house constantly."
"It's the price of genius, baby."
Chad is an absent-minded professor who I am convinced has early on-set Alzheimers but that is not why I was so torn up by Away From Her. There is a scene in the movie where the husband has to leave the wife in the home and then go to his house alone and I panicked at that thought. Chad and I will be married ten years next year and I already am having a hard time remembering what my life was like before Chad. By the time Olivia graduates from high school we will be married nearly twenty-five years, we will have been together longer than we were apart. By then I probably will have forgotten what my life was like before Chad.
I have never been a person who dreams of sitting on my porch swing growing old with my spouse. I never fantasize about being a grandparent, or cruising around in an RV. In fact, I never think of getting older at all. When I think of retirement, I think of Olivia going away to college, when I am forty-five, which is not old at all. I prefer to live in the moment and the only forward thinking I like to do is for financial planning purposes only. I guess it is because I have always assumed that Chad and I would be together that long and it would be the same as it is now. So just the mere thought of having to leave my husband alone in a strange place with strange people after being together probably more than fifty years was devasting to me.
I suppose I need to start thinking about because i might need fifty years to get used to the idea.
Thursday
Why I Will Not Make Any More Jokes About Putting My Mother In The Home
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2 comments:
Unfortunately no matter how hard you try to plan, the emotions still hit you like a speeding bus. Even though my wife had two close calls over our long time together, where I almost lost her, it didn't make a bit of difference when I eventually did lose her. And losing my wife in no way prepared me emotionally for losing my mother. The only thing I was prepared for over the years was the practical stuff. That is, I was able to start guiding my mom's health care even before my feet hit the ground in PHX. What I learned is, treat every moment as precious and enjoy it as much as possible. This can lead to a sweet/bitter situation. spending lots of together time before the the loss will make the loss even more painful. I prefer to enjoy now and hide in my cave in pain later. The pain can be survived. I took me over a year to be able to function after my wife died, but I mostly came back. Enjoy Life, you only go around once.
And I cried the whole time I read your post. So lucky to have each other. Glad to see you know it too.
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