As We Lived Before
I began caring for my grandfather on September 24th 2006 and provided him with 24 hour care until his death from Alzheimer’s in September 2009. I began this journey when I was twenty-four, and wrote the material in this blog as events unfolded. The reader is encouraged to start at the beginning of the story. It is raw writing, often put down in the late hours of the night, after a long and very tiring day. The attentive reader will notice that spelling, grammar, and sometimes even coherent thoughts have suffered as a result. The current form of this writing is an archive, the original blog no longer in existence.
These posts chronicle the journey of a man battling Alzheimer’s, and his caregiver. But it is more than that. It is about living, and dying. How we live speaks to how we will die, and how we die is a reflection of how we have lived. Rather than pondering how you will die, ask how you will live.
This writing was a chronicle of one journey, but the story is timeless.
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Though our labour soon devours all that lies within our powers
Soon it’s late and all our hours into past’s abyss have tore;
See, the light of Heaven’s fire pales both fame and funeral pyre;
Earthly glory, gain & hire lose the glimmer that they wore
Light of heaven pales the shallow grace and glimmer that they wore;
Now they sway us — soon, no more.For we find in all the ages, men whose passing life presages
Life beyond our dusty cages, light behind that darkest door;
May we, as we end this chapter, freed from earth, our sometime captor,
Hail the advent of an apter sphere for all our souls to soar;
Hail, in death, the ageless God whose sight will make our souls to soar,
Dying as we lived before.“Soar” by Joel Dueck
[Note: I took the material of this blog and used it as the incipient material for a book. In June 2015 that book was published, titled “The Sea is Wide: A Memoir of Caregiving.” If you have appreciated this writing, please consider getting the book and sharing it with others.]