Summoning strength amid daily heartbreak

The usual question is, “What do you give a guy who has everything he needs?”

But that wasn’t Dan’s dilemma.

His was more along the lines of, “What do you give a guy who’s trapped in the clutches of a merciless disease and no longer even knows who you are?”

That would be his brother-in-law, Ron, who just turned 64, slipping deeper into the fog of Alzheimer’s every day.

“I feel so helpless watching him disappear,” Dan, 50, said. “He married my sister Janet when I was in the fifth grade, and even then I knew he was the salt of the earth. He coached my basketball team and was my confirmation sponsor, and was even what you’d call my confidant.

“Then this happened. They called it early onset, which is what it was, because the virtuous life he lived, a life that counted for so much, is ending much too soon right in front of our eyes.”

So why did Dan, a longtime reader, call here?

“I guess I’d like the world to know this disease is not just about older people who suddenly seem forgetful,” he said. “I’d like them all to know how it traumatizes families, especially spouses like my sister.

“She’s not only still working after this thing changed all of their retirement plans, but she’s had to be the bad guy, too, telling him he had to stop driving, hiding things from him for his own protection, and finally sending him to live someplace else when living at home became impossible.”

As Dan talked, the despair in his voice was evident.

“My mother is going to be 93,” he went on. “He was always giving her a kiss on the cheek, telling her he loved her. His mother-in-law! Imagine that? He was a family guy right to the end, a hero to his three daughters. So now his birthday comes along and I was trying to think of something that might please him and suddenly it hit me. That’s really why I called.”

He called to talk about his sister Janet, 62.

“I see spouses who show up every day, trying to be cheerful when their hearts are breaking, just like hers is. That’s tough to see, yet I find myself admiring it, too. ‘In sickness and in health,’ that’s what they all promised back when they were starting out, and here they are, keeping that promise.

“So I guess I’d like to salute my sister for being such a wonderful wife because I think Ron would have liked that.”