David Brooks – Caring for Loved Ones with Alzheimers!!

Dear Common Colleagues,

David Brooks has a most touching column today on caring for loved ones with Alzheimers.  Here is the lead-in.

“Last fall I asked readers over 70 to send me “Life Reports” — essays evaluating their own lives. Charles Darwin Snelling responded with a remarkable 5,000-word reflection.

Snelling was a successful entrepreneur who spent decades serving his community. He was redeemed, he reported, six years ago when his beloved wife, Adrienne, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. “She took care of me in every possible way she could for 55 years. The last six years have been my turn,” Snelling wrote.

“We continue to make a life together, living together in the full sense of the word; going about our life, hand in hand, with everyone lending a hand, as though nothing was wrong at all,” he continued.

He believed that caring for his wife made him a richer, fuller human being: “It’s not noble, it’s not sacrificial and it’s not painful. It’s just right in the scheme of things. … Sixty-one years ago, a partner to our marriage who knew how to nurture, nurtured a partner who needed nurturing. Now, 61 years later, a partner who is learning how to nurture is nurturing a partner who needs nurturing.”

On March 29, less than four months after we published his essay online, Snelling killed his wife and then himself. “

Anyone who has had to take care of relative with Alzheimers can relate to this story.  Read the entire column to get the full experience.  It is an important life lesson.

Tony

 

 

Comments are closed.