We Had Promised Each Other We Would Never Leave One Another

For 3 years, it was forgetting just little things. He never thought anything about it as his job was very stressful. He had a mandatory work meeting down state which he went to. But he called me on the phone saying that he was lost, and that’s when I knew there was something wrong.

I found him on the side of the road; I had told him to park and stay in his car. We went home and he seemed fine for a while.

Then the girls that worked for him asked me to come in; they told me they were concerned about him. From then on I started going into his office. I answered all his phone calls, read all his e-mails to him; he was thrilled to death that I would go with him, and we did the outside work together. I took over driving him to all his appointments and he never missed a mandatory meeting. Then in March of 2013, his manager came to his office and told him the company had decided he needed to retire. The manager looked at me and said “You know he can’t run this office anymore.” My husband took it like a bucket of hot water being thrown on him.

As soon as his manager left he wanted to come home. This man went to bed and would not get out of bed other than going to the bathroom. From then on things went down-hill. On November 13th he had a mini stroke, followed by an aneurism on December 17^th. He came home not the same person. He had lost control of his vitals and became totally dependent on me. I bathed him, changed his Depends and fed him because there was no one else to do this; I made sure he got his medicine, and sat up with him all night many times for three or four days at a time.

On June 9th he passed away from pneumonia, and God only knows how I miss him. We had promised each other we would never leave one another . . . my heart is totally broken, I miss him so much.