O
ne morning 18 years ago, my husband z”l and I walked through a door that took us into a parallel universe, as strange as Oz. The entry was quick, almost instantaneous, with no tornado carrying us there. It happened in a split second in a hotel room.
I woke up in the middle of the night and saw that my husband — a professor of psychology and a gifted artist — was fully dressed and standing by the door. Our children were scheduled to leave in the morning, and he said he wanted to help them with their luggage. When I asked if he thought they’d be checking out in the middle of the night, he answered in an odd way. I felt at that moment as if our life had imploded, that something was terribly wrong, and nothing would ever be the same again.
When I related the incident to our daughter, she was shocked by my response, insisting I’d read too much into it, and there was no way I could possibly infer such a disastrous diagnosis — dementia or some other equally devastating neurological disorder — from such a brief exchange.
I hoped and prayed she was right, but I knew this was not the case. I can’t explain how I knew, but I’d never been so sure of anything in my life. Many times over the course of my husband’s illness, I wished I’d been less perceptive. His illness progressed very slowly, and for a long time, the symptoms were subtle. There was no cure, no effective treatment — in short, there was nothing to be done.
