I miss the man Bill was ... but I am starting to love the man he is
Lanarkshire woman Anne Paul misses the man Bill Keith was: his passion for fine food and wines, his love of literature and writing poetry, and the wanderlust they shared on their travels around the world.
Dementia may have robbed Bill of many of the qualities that made Anne fall in love with him.
But, rather than grieve for the man he was, Anne’s love is growing for the man he is.
A 30-year friendship turned to romance for Anne and Bill when they both found themselves on their own, bereft.
Bill’s wife, Margaret, died in 1997, with Anne’s husband, Ian, losing his cancer battle seven years later.
When, i n 2005, Bill was admitted to hospital with a heart condition, friend Anne suggested he stay with her to convalesce.
The loving couple have been together ever since.
“I was married to Ian for over 40 years, but when I got together with Bill, it was a different style of life,” said Anne, who is session clerk at Gilmore and Whitehill Parish Church in Burnbank, Hamilton.
“We did not have any of the strains of not having much money and the naivety of youth. I worked as a personnel officer and had a good job and no money problems. Our life was like a holiday. We had a great life together.”
In 2012, when retired TV engineer Bill was aged 75, he began to show signs of forgetfulness, and Anne would playfully mock him about his tendency to lose his keys.
But others were beginning to notice his failing memory.
On the advice of her sister, Anne raised concerns with Bill’s GP, who referred him to Udston Hospital in Hamilton. It is there he was diagnosed with vascular dementia.
“We managed absolutely fine. It was not too bad to start with,” said Anne, who decided to take charge of keys and cash, which he frequently misplaced.
Within f our years of his diagnosis, a 79-year-old Bill was becoming more dependant. Although still capable of washing and dressing himself, Anne had to accompany him to the toilet.
A bout of pneumonia and a spell in hospital had a drastic effect on his dementia symptoms, and he began to rely on his partner Anne even more.
But she says the journey began to go downhill when he was struck by pneumonia for a second time.
“We still managed to go to church and still went out for lovely meals,” said Anne, whose dapper partner’s knowledge of fine wines rivalled that of a sommelier.
“However, my life changed a lot. I used to sing, go out and entertain people. But I could not leave Bill. It changed from being a glamorous lifestyle to one of somebody being totally dependant on me.
“Luckily, I have the type of temperament that can handle it. I really don’t know what would have happened, otherwise.”
Never did Anne leave home without Bill, not even for a trip to her hairdresser. So, for the best part of two years, Bill’s barber cut both his hair and hers.
Blessed with a support network of great friends, church elder Anna Lyon and her daughter-inlaw Leigh-Ann – who is a mental health nurse at Udston Hospital’s elderly care unit – asked Anne if she’d join them in starting the Memories Tea Room within the church for people living with dementia and their carers.
There, Anne and Bill would sing and dance, and he adored the theme days – an imaginary trip to the coast, with seaside cut-out boards and even a visit from an ice cream van at which they queued for a cone.
They’d continue to dress up for the special occasions they loved.
But just as the taxi was about to arrive at their Burnbank home, Bill would soil himself and Anne would have to send the taxi away until she’d washed him and changed his clothes.
The professional in Leigh-Ann began to recognise that Anne needed help, both practically and emotionally. “I wasn’t at all aware of it,” said Anne. “I thought I was doing really well. Carers started coming in for 20 minutes in the morning to attend to Bill’s personal care. He was not happy.
“Then, he started going to day care one day a week from 9am to 3pm. He hated it because he was away from me. It was supposed to give me time to myself. I never really took the time, to tell the honest truth.”
When Bill – who had lost his ability to use a knife and fork – was admitted to hospital in August 2019 following a mild stroke, an assessment confirmed he was in need of nursing care and Anne began her search for a suitable care home.
“I went to every nursing home I could possibly come across. Lots of them were lovely but, to me, they didn’t have the right feel for Bill,” she said.
“The minute I walked through the door at Croftbank, I knew it was the place for him. I have been proved right, because they have been absolutely superb.”
Bill moved into Croftbank Care Home in Uddingston in October 2019. With the outbreak of the pandemic, Anne would stand in the rain and snow to chat to him through the window of his room.
He refused to be tested for Covid when he fell ill, and Anne was permitted essential daily visits to the man she thought was dying.
“He recovered and is so much better,” said Anne, who is full of praise for the special qualities of the staff at Croftbank. He has lost the ability to walk – and this is a man who walked miles. For a very clever man, he has lost the ability to have a conversation, to converse.
“He loved reading. He had a library, he loved to write poetry and he used to do the Hamilton Sound reading for the blind. He has lost all that type of ability and now depends on people all the time. He seems happy. He knows my face and he knows my voice, because the smile starts. But it’s difficult to figure out if he knows the relationship between us.
“When I go in, he gets three kisses on the lips. I count them: one, two three, then an Eskimo kiss before I sit down.”
Anne chats while playing the music she’s compiled with the help of charity Playlist for Life and staff at Croftbank. His various playlists range from Love Songs, a