I awake to the movement in the bed as he tries to sit up on the side of the bed. I wait with halted breath to see if he can stand up by himself this morning. He stands and begins to shake his right arm as he tries to move his legs. His whole body shakes from the tremor. Finally, his feet move. He takes two steps and then shakes again. It took him fifteen minutes to go to the bathroom this morning. He is slower than yesterday. I ever so gently let my mind wander to the thoughts of how much longer will he be able to walk. We are now at the point where he has a body/brain disconnect and it may take 20 minutes for him to move. I let the feelings come just beneath the surface. I can't let the feelings show or he will be scared. His fear of death is only outweighed by the fear of living. 1
The breakfast dishes have just been cleared and he shuffles back to the bedroom. He is exhausted just from eatting eggs and toast. The questioning begins as always: "Will I die today?" "I have to die soon don't I?" "I can't feel like this and live much longer can I?" "No, I answer you are not dying today. Your body still has too much life left in it to die. Unless you have a heart attack or your anuerysm ruptures you are not dying today." 2
He looks at me with fear filled eyes. It is a look that is becoming continual. There are no words to comfort him and my heart aches because of this. All I can do is standby and watch as his fear of death consumes him. His angels are coming almost daily now to comfort him but his fear will not allow this to happen. After acknowledging that the angels are there and making sure that they have not come for him at that moment, his mind then makes them into a figment of this imagination. He turns to me and asks for me to turn off the TV with the other people. When I ask where, he says to turn off the TV behind the TV. He has acknowledged that his Dad and his sister, who are both dead, live in his closet and he talks with them.3
I can feel the presence of angels in our house and have felt the presence of his entire family from time to time. We met when I was a nurse and I took care of his ninety-four year old aunt in the hospital and at home as a home health nurse. She had a one hundred year old sister who, although deaf, still cooked their meals and kept the house. I know their energy fields and have felt and seen them in our house recently. They died three weeks apart ten years ago. 4
He has started to hallucinate and he thinks that Clint Eastwood spies on us through a two-way mirror in the TV. Tom Selleck visits him at night and talks to him but he never wakes me up for these "little" talks or to meet Tom. The other Sunday President Bush came into our living to chat with him and I missed that too. He dreams and talks alot in his sleep and he is having a harder and harder time disguishing dreams from reality. When he does realize that he has been confused, he makes out that he is joking.5
The hallucinations have become part of our daily routine. He says we have people who come and sit on the couch and he doesn't know who they are. Last week he ask me if he should tell them he has Alzheimer's and hallucinates. I told him he could. So he yelled at the couch: "I have Alzhiemers and I hallucinate." Yesterday he went to the kitchen to sit because he didn't like the people on the couch. He rarely realizes now that he is confused. 6
As a nurse, I have watched the death process of many people and as a daughter, I have watched the death process of my father. I have not ever seen the fear of death so great in any other person than in my husband. He is so afraid of Hell and will not relinquish the notion that there is no Hell. The greatest injustice the religions of this world ever accomplished is that of creating fear in those seeking unconditional love and forgiveness. 7
It is his fear of Hell that makes him believe that he must be punished before he dies so that his sins will be absolved. Yet, as he creates the punishment within his body and his mind, the fear that his sins will not be absolved no matter what the punishment, initiates a never ending cycle of fear and dread. Religious fear is the worst atrocity man has ever place upon himself. It is my belief that this is the root cause of Alzheimers. One cannot be held accountable in one's mind if one cannot remember. Forgetfulness absolves all sin. 8
It is fear that makes prisoners of Alzheimers patients. A lost mind trapped in a healthy body that can live on and on for years. As my husband's fear increases so does his lack of memory for recent events and the names of many familiar objects encountered each day. I pray that his death will come before he becomes trapped within his body living in a world of delusion. I pray that his enlightenment will occur while he can still remember and know that death is not to be feared. Death is but a transition to another plane in another form of being. I pray he will understand this before his appointed time. I pray for the strength to endure this path that we travel daily to keep him home and not having him in a nursing home. 9
Death has a timetable and comes only at its appointed hour. I know this from watching the death march so many times before in others. It's different this time. He is not a patient. He is my husband. Once a vigorous, robust man, a shell of what he once was exists. There is that blank stare that so many parkinson's patients have. What does he see when he goes there? He doesn't remember. When my father was dying, these episodes were called his white dreams and conversations with the angels. Daddy had cancer and he knew his appointed time was near. My husband doesn't know his appointed time schedule. He is so afraid of his loss of control and is trying so hard to control his death.10
Death cannot be controlled and it has a certain pathway it always follows unless the body dies instantly. It starts at the feet and ever so slowly creeps up the legs turning everything in it's path a mottled blue and deathly white and cold, ever so cold. As it reaches the chest, the breathing is shallow, halting, gasping. As you watch, your breath is halted and your chest tightens , is that the last one? Time stands still as you watch and wait for the next breath. Death has no timetable. It's pathway can take minutes, hours, days, weeks or months. No, you cannot control death. Death contols the dying one and everyone around the dying one. 11
It is bedtime and he falls asleep. I awake hourly to hear him snore and wait with halted breath to hear him breath. I reach out to feel if he is still warm and feel the rise and fall of his covers. I memorize his energy field so I will recognize it when his spirit returns to me after his body is gone. It is a well worn pattern played out night after night. Watching and waiting, knowing Death will come one night with or without notice. 12
It has been a difficult journey to come to this acceptance.
Death is but a transition to another deminsion. A deminsion that allows total freedom of the spirit. There is freedom from fear, pain, aches, and dis-eases. Unconditional love and acceptance and forgiveness are boundless. Time and space are no more. The spirit is free to move about between this world and the next. Although my spirit rejoices in his transition, my ego cries with despair and the pain in my heart is inconsolable.13
As this part of my life's play comes about, I know that my path of truth and learning is that of being a guide from this world to the next. I am to help him awaken to the knowledge that death is not to be feared but to be coveted. I am to show him that this body is but a suitcase and without the spirit soul it is to be discarded. The body can be a flawed dis-eased container used only while we are on earth. The Spirit Soul is like a pearl; a perfect creation and one with the All. 14
I have learned, however, that each of us have a path to follow and lessons to learn. I have had to accept that I cannot change the path my husband has laid before himself. I can but watch with love and compassion and assist him as he asks no matter who he might think I am. I can only strengthen my connection to the Universe and as a peeble creates outward reaching circles when thrown into the water, create a circle of unconditional love and forgiveness extending from the Universe to me and to him; engulfing him and dissolving all his fears.15
We as souls are like a string of beautiful cultured pearls; each complimenting the other and less than whole if one is amiss. As we awake to the knowledge that this life is only a dream and we have been asleep in God all the time, we will rejoice to be a part of the whole again. We are indeed more than the sum of our parts. The string of love that connects each soul like a string of pearls is a wonderous thread of light and vibration. It extends from God to each and every soul flowing through and swirling around; hold each individually and collectively. We are each perfect creations of Love and Light.16
I will have faced by biggest fear, death and loneliness, with the lose of my soulmate. I will have learned by life's lesson of unconditional forgiveness and love for his leaving me behind. I will have awakened to the knowledge that we are never separated but forever entwined for all eternity. We are the sunbeams, the beautiful swirls of light that engulfs at sunrise and sunset, and the stars that twinkle in the sky. We are the All ; forever connected. 17
However, as I learn these lessons and am learning to integrate them into the deepest part of my soul, the actual reality of watching him die day by day and knowing that I will wake up and he will be cold and stiff or I will walk into the living room and find him taking his last breath looms as a giant weight over me. My heart feels like it being pulled out of my chest, whenever I walk into a room and he lies or sits motionless and I watch to see if he is breathing. How will my life go on without him but which is worse an empty mind in a body that is kept alive by his beating heart and he has no knowledge of who I am or where he is or his sudden and immediate death? No matter his path, he is lost to me. Do I pray for his death with dignity or pray for his presence of body with no dignity of life left? Am I being selfish to pray for the ordeal to end or am I being selfish to pray for him to stay with me because I do not want to let him go? I guess the answer is the that I learn to forgive. I forgive him for dying and forgive myself for my prayers.18
As I watch him progress in his soul's upward spiral to his next highest plane and his body's downward spiral to death, his eyes become more empty each day. It is a daily reminder of the emptiness of the mind taken by the progression of the Alzheimers. Ironically, the more he leaves me mentally and physically the more I feel the protection of his soul around me. He's soul's energy engulfs every fiber of my being and surrounding my energy field. He has always engulfed me with his protection since we met. It is this connection of security, protection and love that was so comfortable and familiar, it has become apparent to me on my path of enlightenment that our souls have been entwined since time began and will be until all time ends. I pray for the love and strength to assist him on his chosen path this lifetime and learn the lessons of enlightenment, purity of love and forgiveness that will bring us closer to our oneness with God. 19
The time of the realness of the reality that we have been living each day has arrived. I find that reality and my philosophy of allowing my husband to die with dignity at home where he is surrounded by the memories of the life he loved so much; has been the most excruciating decision I have ever made. I wil, indeed, watch the last breath he takes and my poor heart will ache until our spirits dance together again.20
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