To Lyn, and all who have been following Mary's Dementia
It appears Mary's childern have all things under control and she has been convenced that our love's reality over the past decade was not good! Perhaps but too I shall continue to believe that our Lord shall be my judge for He in my belief knows all that has been done and said and why and he knows every fiber in her loving heart as well as mine. The sad part is that disease apparently creates confusion in its victoms and opens the doors of error not only by the victim but by others as well!
I would like to share my thoughts not in justification of myself but as an aid to anyone who who attempts to be care for any victim of such a disease! What you read below comes from my heart and are words I would like to tell her and her children but they shall never see them or if they did would only say I wrote them out of self-righteous logic rather than out of fact.
Yet there mother even less than a month ago told them all how happy she was and how much she knew that I did all things for her even as memory seemed to fade up and down more slippery slops. For me I can only pray her remaining life will be filled with joy and happiness!
Below are my thoughts and witnessings about love and loving especially under the clouds of decention and lost memories! It is filled with many personal things between her and I over the past years but it is written as I stated it. I wrote it selfishlessly to relieve myself and find a place to cry out my own pains over her pains! I can only pray my experinecs may be helpful to others!
YOU and ME
Tu Yo
I guess I am writing this out of my own depression as a means to make sense of love and life in this world as it is! A word I feel is filled with many complexities that can either keep people together as God intended or totally destroy both the spiritual as well as the physical life any and all things. As it is written about joining of people and the death of such joining by even God! For of a decree of divorce was written due to the coldness of the human hearts which not only kills the joining of people but kills the very life essence of humanity! And there are many factors of life even earthly diseases as well as spiritual possessions that stimulate hearts to error away from the will of God. Even the coldness of others over such joining can override a sanctified joining of people by the hand of God! Especially if one or the other that has been joined has been influenced by outside stimulant of this world and all its trappings and sicknesses!
It is a rare gift to finally recognize and realize that love is all around us and it is the only and real reason for all life to have the ability to even exist. That is as a mother and father love their children, their friends and even the passing stranger that may walk down the same path that you do. The friendly hello even to an outsider could be the welcomed logic for such a person to chose to keep a hold on to life itself!
Jesus taught us to love our enemies and neighbors as we do ourselves. Such words and instructions are so strong as they should be. For without love there is no life and unfortunately for those who can’t love each other as God intended us all to do there is no life in them!
From my life and with all its hardships and tribulations the reality of love has always been and is what has kept me going through all things. Late in my life and a few years ago I met a sweet lady who had lived a harsh unbearable life and as I was told but she raised 9 babies pretty much on her own under some of the worst of circumstances. As with all families along with all the problems of some of children being good and some not so good she loved each and every one of them with all her heart.
As we talked and became the best of friends even though she was 10 years my senior and I had little to offer her due to a life of illness and having few possessions of this world. And with her coming out of poverty she also have little things of this world as well!
However with all these obstacles she was and became the first in my entire life to have truly shown me real love and gave it to me openly and freely as I gave such love to her. We became not only friends but she became my partner in all things in my life as I did hers. When she became ill with a disease called Dementia or had other problems I was always there to take care of her and when I became ill or had problems with a life long illness of Diabetes and heart disease she was always there to care for me when I needed it as well! In totality we became joined at the hip and at the heart! Joined not as a married couple but truly joined both spiritually as well as physically out of both physical and spiritual needs to survive in this world.
As many take an oath in sickness and in health richer and poorer until death do we part. She who came from a Spanish ancestry, in her language we use to say to one another often as rough times and good times passed Tu Yo or it’s just me and you! And now that we are apart I will always know between her and I it is Tu Yo!
As time went on she was being grasped and became overcome by the symptoms of her dementia, which I am told by her doctors was brought on by years of depression. As well as many years of use of many prescriptions for pain that she took to relieve her from arthritis and a fatigue syndrome! Plus that was always aggravated by many heartaches, that came along with that bad past. Also as it was for her children they also carried many of the problems from that past, which presented her with more grief and worry about how her babies reacted to many things in life.
For me with my own life long illness battling a very brittle diabetic condition, heart disease and many other problems associated with that disease. As well as carrying a lot of baggage of my own, meaning we both came from a very unhappy past filled without true love, as God intended us all to have! But together we could talk about our worries and griefs over our babies and share with one another many good as well as bad memories! She and I became Tu Yo or one over many things!
So for me and her today it is no longer Tu Yo because her children feel life for both of us would be better separated and apart and through her dementia they work at convincing her that this is what is best for her. For me as I see it and as it is written, let no one divide whom God has joined. I pray that God knows it was neither her choice no mine that such should happen. For I would never turn my back on her no matter how sick she got and now that she is gone from me I find my sickness is worsening but she is in my heart forever. And I asked that God show me a way to live with out her until death may I be left lost and alone, instead of Tu Yo, with my loving Mary!
Thank You God for those precious few moments that I have been given with her and forgive those of hers that worked so diligently and even lied to both her and I about the realities of how we both loved each other dearly, as a means to keep us apart!
From here I shall put my faith in God that He will protect her as He always has and that He shall also protect me from the same evils that surround us all in our daily lives, so until it is my time to go home. Tu Yo My Mary and stay with God always and know I am with you for I know you did nothing wrong. You’re the greatest and a perfect child of Gods too!
David M. Schare
David aka rabbin