Save your life or save all the regret?

Natalie Vineberg/The Washington Post; iStock

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐥𝐲 𝐮𝐧𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞. 𝐎𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐭. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨?

“In the months after my partner, Alex, was diagnosed with dementia in 2019, more than one person advised me to 'save' myself. What they meant was that I should move Alex into an assisted-living facility and get on with my life.

“Alex’s diagnosis followed months of realizing more and more urgently that something was seriously wrong. It was as if we had entered a tunnel in which the only exits were into doctor’s offices for tests and scans and increasingly concerned conversations.

“This left me completely torn. Of course, I didn’t want him to get worse. But until he did, help was limited. I learned the hard way that there isn’t an exact correlation between a person being able to perform daily activities and being able to live independently, or even be left alone for an extended period of time.

“Early in the pandemic, I made my own list, not of things Alex could or couldn’t do, but things from our former life that we could still enjoy. The list was modest — only four items: drinking tea in the morning, going on hikes, watching something on TV in the evening and taking the occasional day trip. This is the list that guided me through the long, lonely days of lockdown.

“What I think about now, more than two years after Alex’s death, is that there is more than one way to save yourself.

“Even as Alex’s world shrank, we could still have tea together every morning and watch TV at night. He could still take comfort from our beloved cats. He could stand in the woods behind the house and look at the light on the trees. He could live with someone who loved him, even in his diminished state.

"In opting not to save myself from the burden of Alex’s care, I ended up saving myself from the burden of regret. And that is going to last me a lifetime.”

Thank you, Sue Dickman, for this, straight from your heart! And thank you The Washington Post for publishing this.

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​https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/09/07/dementia-partner-assisted-living-caretaker/