The milk truck hauls the sun up
And the paper hits the door
The subway shakes my floor
And I think about you
Time to face the dawning gray
Of another lonely day
Baby, it's so hard
Living without you
Living Without You--Randy Newman
I'm not going to let Alzheimer's kill two people. I won't, but even when you've already grieved for all the pieces of the person you love that are stolen by Alzheimer's over the years, it's still very very hard. Winter nights in the Pacific Northwest are long so I usually get up even before that dawning gray. About a week after Pam's death I overslept and got up and was outside as the sun came up, pink and red all around. I heard a familiar call and looked up and saw four bald eagles fly overhead and realized that there was still a part of me that could feel something other than pain.
A special welcome to anyone who is new to The Grieving Room. We meet every Monday evening. Whether your loss is recent or many years ago, whether you have lost a person or a pet, or even if the person you are "mourning" is still alive ("pre-grief" can be a very lonely and confusing time) you can come to this diary and process your grieving in whatever way works for you. Share whatever you need to share. We can't solve each other's problems, but we can be a sounding board and a place of connection.
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I cannot put my feelings into words right now. It has been just over a month. I know that grief is a feeling like no other, a powerful force that I have no control over. I miss her so and maybe some of what made her who she was and how much I cared about her . . .well, I will try to write about that.
I met her when she interviewed for a job as Director of Nursing in a health care facility where I was administrator. There was a bit of an unofficial pre interview that was being conducted by a group of long time residents who sat around the waiting room at the front of the building. One of the workers in the business office could look out of her window and watch the "interview". Linda came into my office to tell that this one "was a keeper". She didn't know how true that would be. Pam and I shook hands and sparks flew off my fingertips.
I was building an airplane when we got together. After that, we were building an airplane. She thought the shape of the plane's nose was bad (She was right), so she took a saw and cut it off and started over again. We mixed gallons and gallons of epoxy and spent almost a full year itching from sanding fiberglass. I taught her how to fly. I'm sort of a technician as a pilot, by the numbers all the time. She wasn't that way at all. She just loved to be up there.
We saw a program on PBS one night about a guy who sailed around the world and realized we had each had this crazy idea in the back of our minds. Our little airplane was now done and in the air, and we began flying around the west coast looking at sailboats. Nothing we saw seemed right until a trip to Seattle and a 31 footer that she decided was the boat for us. The house got sold and we got rid of our stuff to the point that it all fit in a 4x8 Uhaul trailer and we headed to Washington to move onboard.
With winter coming on we learned how to live on a boat. Nothing worked and Pam didn't care. Wednesday before our first Thanksgiving aboard we realized that the 250 degree alcohol oven wasn't going to ever be able to cook our turkey, so we charged out to the marine store to get a propane barbeque just before they closed for the holiday. Thanksgiving was saved. It got cold and it snowed and the diesel heater blew out in the wind unless the dinghy was propped up as a windbreak.
We got a flying job that let us fly together. On our downtime we rebuilt all the systems on the boat. We kept working on the boat and after seven years, we quit our jobs and sailed away, first north to Alaska and then down the west coast. No real plans for me, I just wanted to get as far as Mexico and see what happened. Pam kept saying circumnavigation.
We wandered west and towards the end of 1998 we were anchored at Aitutaki, a small island in the Cook Islands. It was the happiest time of our lives, just living and doing everything together.
American Samoa was the next stop and we knew it would be a working stop to replenish our funds. Pam went to work in the operating room at the hospital and I flew for the local airline. Memory issues started then and with our backgrounds in health care, we both knew what might be happening. There was pain, anger, and denial. The "A" word could not be spoken. After a diagnosis in Australia, I wanted to ship the boat home. She insisted that she wanted to live her life, cruising on her boat.
So we did and she was right. We saw amazing things, but more importantly, Pam was able to continue to live as a person, not as someone with Alzheimer's. Even after we got back to Washington in 2004, she was still able to live her life, one that we shared, as normal as it could be, right up until the last few months.
In pictures taken the last few years I see Alzheimer's in her face. There aren't many I like, but I do like this one. She's talking to that girl she sees in the reflection on the inside wall of the old Airstream trailer we restored, our last project together. She no longer had words, but she could still "talk".
Now I am the one without words. I just miss her.