Looking after a life partner afflicted with memory loss can be a heartbreaking experience, but not without moments of mirth and opportunities of self-understanding and growth.
That is what a full-house audience at St. Andrew’s Anglican learned from five courageous women who took the stage in the “For Whom I May Concern” readers theater program on Sunday, October 5.
The brilliantly crafted script was put together by facilitator and professional memoir creator Alicia Knox, based on the true-life stories that the performers shared over seven weeks of preparation sessions. Elizabeth, Peggy, Martha, Joan and Elly provided unvarnished accounts of taking care of long-time spouses who are going through the developing stages of dementia.
Listeners were moved by recollections of deep fears stirred in tracking down partners who became disoriented and lost when venturing away from home on their own. And dread that no amount of love and devotion can prevent their names and faces from being erased from memory. Or the worries about what would happen if their spouses outlive them, because statistics show that 30 percent of caregivers die first.
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