From: The Well Spouse: My Journey of Love, Resilience, and Alzheimer’s by JoAnn Wingfield. Copyright © 2020 by the author. All rights reserved. 

From Chapter Nine, "Away from Her"

On a sunny day in late October 2007, about a month after our return from Mackinac Island, Clyde took up residence at Monticello. My daily routine now included going to Monticello during my lunch hour as often as I could, returning there after work until I tucked Clyde securely in bed around eight thirty, then going home to the big-and-beautiful-but-empty house in University Park. The commotion and conversation that had flowed from room to room were gone so suddenly; the house felt eerily devoid of life, as if death had already happened.

I remember standing in our giant walk-in closet, finding it hard to breathe. The air inside seemed heavy and stagnant. Half the closet was still full of Clyde’s clothes. As my eyes went through them, I walked down memory lane: that black-and-white herringbone wool jacket I got Clyde for one of his birthdays was the first one in his collection that was neither solid navy blue nor solid black; I had purchased the red cashmere sweater in haste one New Year’s Eve on the way to the airport to pick him up; the pink shirt was the source of an inside joke—whenever he wore it, I teased, “Are you a real man today?”; that forest-green Banana Republic shirt in thick, soft cotton was another birthday present from me. I had presented it to him with a note: “You are my pine tree, big and tall, straight and sturdy, shielding me from storms and catching me when I fall.”

 And then there was the old navy blue jacket, tailor-made for him in Hong Kong.

            “Hon, read the label.” He pointed to a label on the inside pocket.

            “‘High Class Tailor,’” I read. “Was it made by a very famous tailor?” I was much more innocent in those days.

            “Do you see how funny it is?”

            “What?” I was also much slower back then.

            “This is very funny, Hon. No one in the West who is high class, tailor or otherwise, would call himself that and put it on a label.” He was much more cynical than I.

 I finally saw the humor in it, and we laughed together. After that, we called all our “Made in China” items “High Class.”

But standing in the closet now, alone, the thought of the “High Class Tailor” didn’t make me laugh. Instead, as I inhaled the masculine scent that rose from his clothes, so familiar, so dear, so reminiscent of his physical presence, I began to cry.

Could it be true that this house would never again see his figure pacing about the rooms, never sense the vibration of his footsteps on the staircase, and no longer experience signs of his physiology around the toilets?

Could it be true that I would never again feel his warm breath on the back of my neck, or hear that deep metallic baritone voice calling from somewhere in the house, “Hon, where are you?”

Could I ever be happy again?

What does happiness mean without him?

What does life mean without happiness?      

Holding that green cotton shirt, feeling his presence and mourning his absence at the same time, I knelt down on the floor, curled up in a fetal position, and buried my face in the soft, soft green cloth, sobbing.

….

The calendar had turned to the last page of 2007. Autumn was all but gone; winter lay ahead. Spring would most definitely return again, but my Clyde would never return. His absence from the home we had built together was terminal, perpetual, and as certain as the yesterday gone by.

 Or was it?

From: The Well Spouse: My Journey of Love, Resilience, and Alzheimer’s by JoAnn Wingfield. Copyright © 2020 by the author. All rights reserved.