Last fall, Linda I were sitting watching a movie named "Starting Out The Evening" on the Sundance Channel, featuring a wonderful performance by Frank Langella as an aging novelist. Towards the end of the movie he has a stroke. After he comes home, his daughter's boyfriend, who he has been at odds with, volunteers to take him to a doctors appointment. Langella's character is walking with a cane and he lives on the upper west side of NYC.
As he and the boyfriend are walking down the street to the doctors office, it reminded me that the last time I travelled to NYC, I was using a cane and was noticeably unsteady on my feet. A bit later on in that same section, after the doctors appointment, it switches to a scene of the novelist in his bathtub with the boyfriend helping him. Because of the stroke, he needs help getting out of the tub , so the boyfriend gently wraps his arms around the old man, who is essentially dead weight, and helps him out of the tub and tenderly dries him off with a towel.
At this point, Linda and I come undone because, that scene is representative of our every morning ritual. Being cared for, when your legs and arms don't work, is humbling. Being the caregiver, is flat out the most difficult task - emotionally and physically - one can have dropped on them. How Linda gets from day to day is beyond me. No one, except another caregiver, can comprehend the Intense pressure of spending very waking minute thinking about the everyday stuff we all deal with AND being the eyes, ears, legs and arms for someone else.
I've said it before and I'll say it here: Linda, I loved you without end before ALS hit us. I still love you endlessly but my respect for you and all you do with such tenacity and grace cannot be measured. Good movie, huh? Love ya babe<3
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