Category: Our Relationship

Our lives have changed significantly since Kate’s diagnosis fourteen years ago. Our world was much larger then. Now, it’s very small. Over time, she has lost almost all of the abilities she used to have.

For the past four and a half years, she has required total care. Her caregivers and I get her in and out of bed with a lift. We bathe her. We dress her. We feed her.

For ten years, we binged on movies, musical and theatrical performances, and ate out for all of our noon and evening meals. Today, the big events of our day are going for ice cream at 3:30 and having dinner at 4:30. We get her to bed at 6:30 p.m just before the caregiver leaves.

These changes have had a dramatic effect on our relationship. More often than not, she doesn’t seem to know who I am in the morning. That is balanced by other moments during the day and evening when she expresses her feelings for me in various ways. Since she has aphasia, she depends heavily on her facial expressions to communicate those feelings.

She often gives me a smile that I am confident communicates her love. That occurs most often when I return home from lunch and meetings with friends or organizations with which I am a member.

My favorite part of the day is our evenings after the caregiver leaves. We watch music videos on YouTube, and I recount many of the things we have done together during our marriage. We hold hands. She strokes my arm. She rarely says, “I love you”, but sometimes she takes my hand and lifts it to her lips and kisses it several times.

Sometimes she is talkative. One night last week, we talked for almost an hour. I love these conversations. Even though I only understand a few words sprinkled among the gibberish, the conversations seem very natural, and it is clear that love still binds us together. I am grateful.

Kate has never been a morning person. That has never been truer than during the middle and late stages of her Alzheimer’s. She rarely speaks in the morning. Sometimes cheerfulness and speech make their first appearance in mid-afternoon, often as we have ice cream shortly after 3:30. Sometimes it doesn’t happen until dinner, or even later.

For me, our evenings together are among the best times of the day. We watch music videos on YouTube and talk. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s hard for me to adequately express in words. Last night, I took a few videos and attached them to a post on Facebook.

I like to think that Kate would forgive me for letting the public in on private moments like this when she is in bed in her bed clothes and her hair messed up. Despite this, I believe it’s a beautiful example of how happy she is and why this is my favorite part of the day. She still captures my heart as we approach our 62^nd anniversary. Not even Alzheimer’s has been able to take this away from us.

One year ago today, I wrote a blog post entitled “2024: Off to a Good Start.” One year later, I have the same feeling. Of course, I don’t know what lies ahead, but I know that Kate made progress throughout 2024. Not only that, she experienced significantly more “Happy Moments” during the latter part of the year. And yesterday, the first day of 2025, she had a wonderful day. She was cheerful in the morning and continued throughout the day until she fell asleep last night. She smiled and talked all day. We topped it off with a great evening today. Even though I couldn’t understand much of what she said, it was wonderful engaging in the conversation.

This morning got off to a good start when I walked in the bedroom and saw her smiling. Then she said, “Thank you” with an even bigger smile. I don’t know who she was thanking, but she has hallucinations. I suspect she saw someone who did something nice. For me, it’s great just to know that she is happy.

May the New Year bring happiness and joy to you and your families!

From time to time, people have asked if Kate still knows me. That’s a good question for which there isn’t a simple answer. It depends on what one means by “knowing.” My answer is “Yes, she does,” but I don’t believe she always remembers my name or that I am her husband. I know that one night last week, she looked at the caregiver and said, “Where is Richard?” She often recognizes me as someone familiar and someone she likes.” Every day she shows signs that this is so.

On the other hand, there are frequent times when it appears that she doesn’t recognize me at all and doesn’t have any special feelings for me. That is most common in the morning and began more than five or six years ago. Some mornings, she seems to recognize me immediately and gives me a big smile. That happened yesterday morning. She was very happy to see me. She frequently responds the same way when I return home from lunch.

She is most likely to “know” me in the evening after the caregiver leaves. In those moments she connects with me in a way that suggests a closer relationship than she has with other people. I suspect some of that is brought on by what I say to her. I always recount memories from past events in our relationship. She responds with loving smiles that tell me that those memories and I am special to her.

Most evenings, she is not talkative but conveys her feelings with her facial expressions, by holding my hand and running her fingers across my hand and arm. Some nights and a few mornings, she is talkative. We’ve had a good number of those in the past few weeks. One evening in the past few days we talked more than thirty minutes. These are moments I treasure.

Another time when she conveys that she knows me is when we are getting her up and putting her to bed. We have to roll her on her side in bed to dress and undress her. I always assist the caregiver who stands on Kate’s side of the bed and rolls Kate closer to her. I get in bed on the other side of Kate and put my right arm under her shoulder and my left hand on her thigh to roll her to me. I continue to hold her in my arms while the caregiver does what she needs to do.

Kate doesn’t like being rolled; however, she relaxes when she is in my arms. She affectionately runs her hands across my back. Frequently, she talks to me in a very natural way, and, sometimes she laughs as she speaks. Strange as it seems these are moments involving a physical and emotional connection. They are romantic moments for us. Yes, she knows me, and our love is still alive although it is expressed in ways we could not have imagined before.

It doesn’t matter to me whether she remembers my name or that I am her husband. Our relationship remains strong. For that, I am grateful.