The Good Life

I used to be smug when comparing my life to those of my friends.  With a good job, a nice home, sound marriage and two children who’d always excelled before going on to successful careers, I felt blessed.  We holidayed abroad three times a year and my family wanted for nothing. 



It wasn’t just material wealth; my daughter and I were best friends.  We often went shopping or enjoyed spa weekends and my son would confide things to me that no one else knew.  As for the relationship with my husband, for my part at least, I was as much in love with him in our sixties as when we were first married.



Over the years I’d seen friends’ and acquaintances’ marriages fail, their children rebel, heard their financial worries and had sighed inwardly with relief. 



Then after my husband, Hank, and I retired things changed.  It wasn’t sudden so it took some time to notice but Hank’s memory started failing quickly and dramatically.  He’d walk into a room confused, wondering why he was there.  But that happens to us all with age, doesn’t it?  It quickly got to where he couldn’t name everyday objects and then to the point where he refused to go out with our friends - terrified he’d forget their names or become dazed and bewildered through the evening.



My perfect life floundered.  I saw less of the children.  They weren’t unsympathetic; they just couldn’t bear to see their father so helpless.  The stress of his condition and looking after us both got so much that eventually, I had an emotional breakdown.  Hank went into specialist care (I don’t like using the word ‘home’ because that’s exactly what it wasn’t).



I visited him daily; on some days Hank was fine, on others he would get so upset that I was obviously someone so familiar to him but that he didn’t know who.  Those days broke my heart.



This morning I took him a photo album with snaps of us all over the years…of our good life.  Hank didn’t lift his head to look at me so I left it on the bed. 



“I love you, Hank,” I whispered with tears in my eyes.  For weeks now he’d not spoken to me which had brought me to the agonising conclusion that by continually visiting him I was just causing upset.  I’d decided that this was the last time I’d come.



“Bye, Barbara….” he’d said, tears rolling down his cheek. 



I tenderly stroked them away.  Those two words from Hank had lessened my guilt.  “Collette,” I sobbed to myself as I walked out the centre, “the good life’s gone.”