Wednesday, May 6, 2009

A milestone of sorts

Today is my husband's birthday and a memorable day...for two reasons. The first, of course, is the celebration of his birth and his reasonably good health and ability to participate in that celebration. The second...a milestone, a turning point and a difficult decision for him. He decided not to renew his driver's license which was due today and in doing so has voluntarily given up driving altogether.

I am so proud of him and of course relieved. But I can only imagine the struggle and finally the courage to make this decision. His confusion and short term memory loss has increased and in those wonderful moments of cognition and rational thinking he is the pragmatic and ever philosophical and heroic man that I know. He has always been strongly independent and self sufficient. Now, he has given up a major part of his freedom, not out of fear but concern for others. He is willing to become dependent on me to drive him everywhere..to doctor's appointments, to the barbershop, to the golf course, etc. His reasoning was so he would not endanger anyone, lest he became unable to handle a vehicle.

As I have said before, he is amazing in his acceptance of life's trials and tribulations. He stills shows his love for his family in gentle, kind acceptance of this disease. He jokes occasionally about his "brain farts" as he calls them. His sense of humor and his wit are still intact. I lose patience all too often and he smiles gently or apologizes and he disarms me with his love.

This journey is not an easy one for us but he has really tried to make it easier in his own way for me. Some have said I have a lot of strength and courage to go through this and they say he is lucky to have me. I think I am the lucky one for having him.