Living with dementia magazine February 2010

Seven years ago, Robert Breckman's wife, Julie, who had Alzheimer's disease, died. Here, Robert writes about life without her.

Julie and I were married for some 25 years. She contracted Alzheimer's disease at the ridiculously young age of 55 and died ten years later in 2003, having spent seven of those last years in a nursing home.

Being with dear Julie was a wondrous time and experience, albeit with the goalposts moving halfway through our relationship. We are all subject to routines, no matter what our experiences are. 

But when that routine is irretrievably broken? How does one adapt one's future regime? There is a void and memories proliferate. Everything one does has a tangent. It touches another recall.

Association of thought

Julie collected Staffordshire pottery and in my front room we've got a whole load of Staffordshire and paintings. When you look at them, you have instant recall of where they came from, and the memories come flooding back.

I found a piece of Staffordshire of a pug. We had a pug, Bryan, and in the latter part of Julie's residence at the nursing home, Bryan stayed with her as a companion. When she sadly died, Bryan came home to live with me. He was a permanent reminder of Julie and happier days.

It obviously came to pass that Bryan, in dog years aged 98, died. And I was alone in an empty house, with all the mementos of a past life.

Company

I don't have the desire to mix and haven't had the desire to do so since I effectively stopped mixing with Julie. We didn't socialise because we didn't need to. We were quite happy going out together and being with each other.

The problems are, when the relationship finishes, in this case when Julie died, you don't have a social life because your whole social life has been mixed up with the woman you're living with. The people who had invited you out before tend to stop asking if you keep on refusing.

My daughter's quite firm, she will say, 'Get a life dad. Go out, do things,' and of course being a macho man you don't do what people tell you to do, so you carry on in your own style. Sometimes you think, 'Yes, I will do something.' 

The expectation of driving off to see friends is great fun. It's the coming back from a good day out when you're alone that's difficult. I also find music hard. Julie would get very emotional over music, and now it's spread over to me.

Routine

Without your partner, routine takes on new dimensions. I have not become adept at cooking, but am proficient with a microwave. Checkouts at supermarkets with my meal for one become the norm. Buying two for one is not for me. There is only one.

House cleaning when Julie lived at home was a joint effort. Now it is just me. I tend to leave it all for another day. I make plans to do it tomorrow but somehow tomorrow never seems to come. 

I'm 71. I should have retired. I go into my office three times a week and am on the phone on the other two. Sometimes I go into the office on a Saturday. It is something to do. I read but find concentration difficult. Work is my focus.

For Julie

When I became a member of Alzheimer's Society, I read other people's experiences in the newsletter. You're rather sanguine, because you think you know it all, but they registered subliminally. I thought I'd write an article for it as writing things down helped.

After Julie died seven years ago, I decided in her memory to put all the experiences published in the newsletter together in a book published by the Society, which I called In Memory of memories. I hoped it would help other people.

I was fortunate that I was able to afford to keep Julie's memory alive in material things. I've done various things for her. There's a gallery in her name at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. I funded some bursaries for kids out there. We've got some benches in Battersea Park and there's an animal hospital in Romford.

Now

I have a new lifestyle. You can't make a magic wand and say, 'Hey look, I'm going to carry on.' The aftermath is just the continuance of your life without someone sharing it with you. Maybe it's not the exuberant lifestyle I used to have, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's the wrong lifestyle for me at this point in time.

Julie died on 31 January 2003. On her anniversary, I shut myself off and go along to Battersea Park, take some flowers from the local supermarket and put them on her bench, and I just sit there.