November:  Endgame

The dementia has won.

You have failed.

But you knew you would. You knew that it would come to this point. And still, you fought the hard fight, doing more...and doing it longer...than you ever dreamed possible. There is nothing that you have ever done before which had ever prepared you to think you could do this.

And even now, your loved one still has those rare lucid moments, those brief flashes of light in their eyes. This gives you strength to make the final few miles of this ultra-marathon, accepting all that comes along the way, just so you can let them know that they are still loved. It is perhaps the most precious gift you have ever given. Or ever received.

In the last year or so of care-giving for Martha Sr, I got sick and tired of hearing some variation of the comment “You're a saint for doing this.”

Oh, those friends and acquaintances meant well, when they said it. So I didn't respond except to thank them for their kind words.

But I knew I was not a saint. I did not do this out of some kind of religious belief. I did it out of simple, intense love and respect – both for my wife, and for her mother. And in doing it, I became a better person.