Hi Susan. I am doing well. Still numb and very sad but at this point Gregory is being well taken care of. He is no longer the man you knew just a short while ago. I am grateful for his current home, one of the best Memory Care Facilities in Chicago, and am grateful to begin learning a new role as Secondary Care Giver. I do not have to go it alone but have a team of nurses, social workers, dietitians, doctors, therapists, etc to help Gregory as his needs continue to change.
Eventually I'll get on with my life. I never martyred myself to Gregory's disease and continued to have an identity of my own but did devote a lot of time, and energy, and love on an increasing basis as Gregory's needs increased. My identity, however, did include having a life partner with which to share my days. With him in his new home and me in the old one, I have to figure out who I am as a single person and what the angle of my days will look like.
Now, while I see him a couple of hours every day, I have lots of time on my hands and not yet the motivation to do anything with that time. I think the first thing I'll involve myself in is tailoring the condo to my needs and removing those things that met Gregory's needs. I will continue my writing and begin again to pursue a publisher for my memoirs which were organized at Ragdale during my residency in 2010. I hope to begin traveling again.
What I do not seem to have, and being good to myself since it has only been two weeks since this major upheaval, is any idea of what the future will hold. No goals. No ambitions. No hopes and desires. Except that Gregory be well taken care of and that I continue to be healthy and alive.
In some way, it is as though this moment has always been arriving and always leaving at the same instant yet doesn't exist in reality. Gregory is very visibly living in the moment, no past and no future and not really much of a present as we know it, and perhaps for now, I am living in the moment as well.
Love you, miss you, keep your guest room ready as one day I will arrive at your doorstep (with notice :-)
Fondly,
Michael
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