Most importantly, though, during those years I cared for my beloved husband as he sank slowly through the last years of a rare dementia called Fronto-Temporal Degeneration. As I lost the man he once was, my lover and partner, and become more of a mother than a wife, I also went through some serious inner soul work of my own. Some of it even related to some of my early posts in this blog. Only those who have been through it can imagine the soul-deep exhaustion and sorrow of this long, slow road to death. But God and my friends surrounded me at all times, carried me when possible, and stayed by me when, sometimes, I fell and just couldn't get up and go on for awhile.
On June 9, Les went peacefully to sleep and I began the torturous process of grieving the one I had really lost years before, recovering my physical and emotional strength, and learning to be happy for the release--both his and mine--while simultaneously heart-broken at the loss.
It's a new year and a new day, and I am ready to begin, at least a little, to pick up the threads of my career as a speaker and writer, knowing that these experiences will only help me, and therefore others, in the end.
