The Looooong Goodbye

This week we made a quick 24 hour round trip to Rochester to get the final results from Mayo Clinic on all the tests that they had run on Greg. The final diagnosis Early (Young) Onset Alzheimer's Disease.  We have an official diagnosis, whoop whoop.  I think that a enormous part of me was hoping that they would find something else, something that was curable so that I could have the old Greg back. The Greg that was and always will be the man that swept me off my feet, all those years ago. But because of the diagnosis our lives will be ever-changing, ever-challenging and we will watch Greg change gradually but radically.

So you see I've started the grieving process (even though Greg is still with us) and depression has set in. Why???? Try putting on the facade that everything is okay day after day, try feeling like everything you do is for someone else (Greg, work, the boys, daughter-in law, grandson, church, my parents or whatever/whoever else happens to come along), try slowly losing the love of your life, your soul mate and having another child to raise, try never getting away from all of this (it's like I'm on call 24/7/366, this year anyway), try not having a true friend or friends  that you can talk to when you are down or cry on his/her shoulder if  need be, no one understands , although they try to or have gone through a similar situation every situation is different. If you had all of this going on you would be depressed too. I know that a lot of people have lots of things going on also, but riding in the car on the way home for Rochester I realized that this would be my life for the next 20 years.  Greg's life expectancy is unknown but the physicians say because of his great physical health he could live another 20 years.

They call Alzheimer's Disease the Loooong Goodbye, for a very good reason because that's what it is.  Yes Greg is still with us and for that I give thanks everyday, but everyday I say goodbye to a small part of him. The part  who would call me when  I worked nights, just to see how  my night was going, the part who knew not to buy me cut flowers because I thought they were a waste of money (now I wish I would have let him buy me more). The part that was the  father of the boys and who taught them how to ride their bikes and how to sit  quietly so that the chipmunks would come and eat the peanuts out of their hands, the part that loves to play soccer and guns in the backyard with Walter and oh so many other things that he has done and said. These are the things that I will always keep close to my heart.

While riding in the car on the way home from Rochester, my heart was heavy and tears fell as I thought of all the years that Greg have been married, of the things that have been and the things that will never be. While riding and gazing out the window the words to Van Morrison's song "These Are the Days" kept repeating in my mind
 
"There is no past, there's only future
There's only here, there's only now"

So for know I enjoy the days that we have together, remembering that tomorrow never comes and that we never know when a loved one will no longer be with us.