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tamiloo · 03-07-2008, 03:03 PM

Thank you so much for sharing that with us, I too know who my honey is, thank goodness he still knows me. He has short-term memory problems but thank goodness I am part of his long-term memory...

I read this article in Mainstay about a spouse caregiver who was mourning the loss of her spouse. The article was titled “Redefining normal- again”. She was talking about some of the surprising voids. She said this…

There is a void of intimacy of a partner (and as a long standing well spouse I’m not referring to the physical intimacy of making love…that was lost years ago). I didn’t realize how much emotional intimacy we shared up until the very end of his life. Many of my care giving duties were very physical (feeding him, bathing him, rubbing lotions and creams on his frail body; (even bowel routines involved a lot of touch and tenderness). All those tasks were not the preferred form of sharing intimacy in a marriage, but they still were an intimate connection of everything that was much deeper. In some strange way, those tasks bound us together.

This is so true with my relationship with my Olhipie, Craig. So when she talks about redefining normal…wow…what is normal? Most all the things she did for her husband except for feeding him I do for Craig everyday. Of course, she did not list dressing him or caring for a suprapubic catheter…, which I am sure, she did also.

I love Craig and if our normal is redefined by what we have to do to exist, than our normal is all that she said.

What is your normal??