Dear Readers,
I didn’t get any letters I could use for this week’s column (write me some!) so I decided to talk about a story that’s been really bothering me. This week, you get unsolicited advice. And that is, don’t do this.
The original story can be read in full here: http://www.slate.com/id/2192178/. It’s well worth the read. It’s a love story with the saddest ending since Romeo and Juliet. Only this one is real. She was in her eighties, and he was 94. They both suffered from dementia and lived in the same nursing home. And none of that is unusual. What is unusual is that these two fell in love.
She used to wear the same yellow dress, day in, day out. But once she began this new relationship, she dressed up, did her hair, wore jewelry, smiled and was happy all the time. Her doctors said her health and mental clarity both improved immensely. Similar benefits were seen in him.
But when his son walked in on this blissfully happy couple having sex one day, he threw a hissy fit, and demanded someone put a stop to the relationship immediately. When no amount of effort on the part of the staff managed to keep the lovers apart, the anal little jerk moved his father to a new place, crushing both their spirits, breaking both their hearts, and robbing them of their last chance at happiness in this lifetime.
Why any human being would want to do so something so hurtful and so cruel to his own father, is beyond me. The only good thing about the woman’s illness, is that the Alzheimer's has caused her to forget. And yet it's clear that she's broken, devastated, just unsure why.
Since reading this story (it made me cry) I’ve been talking to everyone I see about it, and a lot of nurses and aids who work at nursing homes have told me that this type of thing happens all the time. People find love in the waning months of their lives, and their younger relatives tear it apart. It’s far more the exception than the rule, but it happens often enough that everyone I talk to can tell me a brand new story with the same heart-wrenching theme.
