Category Archives: MS

Lives Tied Together – Go In Peace

It seems there is a groundswell of murder suicides or reporting of murder suicides involving people with chronic progressing diseases.  Yesterday, I read about a case where a husband killed his wife who had Alzheimer’s before killing himself (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/31/us/love-that-endured-alzheimers-ends-in-2-deaths.html).  
Today, I read about a similar situation where the wife had a fairly progressed state of MS (http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/mercy_murder_suicide_LWRF0UtUB8jKU0uTF2ZcdM#ixzz1rUzf1QSx).  
I am struck by how long these couples have been together.  It would seem the man in both cases was unwilling to continue down a road without his wife.  Both were progressing, though less is reported about the progression of the woman’s cognitive disabilities save she could no longer handle bills.  I imagine it must be very difficult to watch a loved one slip away, and I can imagine the stress of it being overwhelming.  After decades together, watching what we love in our partners’ mind eye dimming seems an incredibly disheartening prospect.  I could understand the actions if it was something they had agreed on together.
How many long time married couples die with in 2 years of each other?  In the grand scheme of events, is this that far outside the norm that we should be horrified?  The unnatural part is the gun and the immediacy of the one death following the other, but if they have tied their lives together for so long should they be denied tying their deaths together too?  It’s a little crazy for my way of thinking and living, but it’s not so far out I can’t imagine the thought processes.
Is it possible the real crazy is simply our inability as a culture to confront death in any way not summed up in our fairy tales?  Come to think of it, most of our fairy tales were rather Grimm.  
I am beginning to think we as a culture strive to only deal with the stuff in the middle of the life cycle, and only when given the Disney version which has to end with “and they lived happily ever after.”   Please remove all sex, birth and death from the viewing area of our culture.  We are cleared only for PG rated material, at least if it is something about which we have to think.  Everything else is simply too shocking to contemplate.
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Despair

It walked into the bar and started asking questions.  For some reason, he quickly fixated on me for his questions, as if I had the answer.  As if  I had any answers…
“Do you know a man who seemed to do everything wrong today?”
No.
“Did it feel like he could do no right?  I mean he couldn’t get which hand was his right hand if you asked him
10 times today.  I mean he was having a breakdown of epic proportions, but seemed only half aware.”
Don’t we all have days like that?

“No, this man went 0-3 when asked to set a table.  I asked him to put the fork down in the correct spot, and he guessed right, as in the not the left side. When I corrected him, I asked him to set the next place.  He remembered being taught, ‘left has 4 letters and so does fork so it goes left.’  Never mind my just having told him for the setting next to him.  He looked at his hands, to figure out which is left saying, ‘stick out your thumb and L appears on left hand.’  Still, it seemed he had no thumbs today which upset him. He just placed the fork down quickly in frustration, and he was wrong again.  So I asked him to reach across the table and set the last place.  He put the fork on the left this time, his left from across the table.  He was very annoyed at being wrong again.  Like I said, 0-3.  Sound like anyone you know?”

 (continued on next page)
No, everyone here is smart and sharp as a tack.  We all have thumbs.
“I don’t think you understand.  He had thumbs.  He just couldn’t use or see them for some reason.  When he got frustrated, even the simple became impossible.  He could still remember the logic to find the answer, but he couldn’t use it.  He muttered something about a Mendoza rule and how he didn’t even belong playing the game of life at this level if he is wrong on everything.”
Wow.  I think I would lose my mind if that happened to me. 
“He did seem in rather a bad way.”
Did he ever find hope?
“I am wondering the same thing.  It’s why I am looking for him.  Will you tell him I am searching for him if you see him?”
Sure thing.  Who shall I say came a calling?
“The Fractured Mirror”
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Side note from a picture posted to Facebook because I find what’s left to be as interesting as wondering what was taken. Are there that many things to be taken ahead of love, faith, peace, passion, healing, beauty, patience, and freedom? Maybe those who took already have those things?:

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