Milford enjoyed good health until he was 65 years old. He awoke one day to find a strange rash on his body. He was diagnosed with a form of leukemia. His eight pound spleen was removed and his health improved. A few years later he had an ongoing battle with prostate cancer, and then after that another few years we were told he had stomach cancer for which he was undergoing chemical therapy. During all this time their finances dwindled and they moved into a modular home in a community of mostly retired people. Milford drove a public school bus because he needed the money, and it gave him something to do away from Marjorie. Marjorie was a fanatical housekeeper and she complained vehemently if Milford disturbed her perfect house. He would have loved to work on mechanical projects but Marjorie made life miserable for him if he took on a project. For a time he sewed to satisfy his need to produce something, and for a time he used photography and the computer as a hobby. Marjorie would have liked Milford to walk with her, she said, but instead they went for a drive every evening, stopping for ice cream on warm days. My husband said that is how they spent weekends when he was a child, driving to various relatives homes or local eateries as a destination. So life continued for Marjorie and Milford, with the two of them almost exclusively alone. For a time Milford was kept busy helping to care for his dying brother, much to Marjorie’s chagrin. She never liked Pete. He had owned a bar and accused Marjorie of being too good for Milford.

Two or three times a year was the most often that we saw Lawrence’s parents including their visits to our house because Kentucky to New York was a 10 hour drive at best. During the first three years of our marriage, our visits were often months long, since Larry was a teacher, and I was a stay at home mom. When our sons entered the teen years, our visits were sometimes only once a year. We both worked two jobs by then and could not spare the time off, and Milford and Marjorie did not care to drive such a distance. Milford said he had driven so much during his career that he did not like driving any longer. I think he knew he was having difficulty with memory and directions, which were the beginnings of his Alzheimer’s disease. Somehow he could drive the school bus, however, undergoing a mental exam each school year to qualify to drive the bus.

Milford and Marjorie came to stay with us a week in the spring of 2005, and I recall how exhausted and strange Milford seemed. That was Milford’s last trip to our house. He was 79 then. During that visit and phone calls over the next three years revealed that Milford had joined in with Marjorie’s unfounded criticism and distrust of family members, which is another symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. Lawrence and his brother visited his parents without me in late 2005, and again in 2006. I knew that his father was declining because of phone conversations with him and other relatives, but Lawrence assured me that they were still able to take care of themselves. I tried to prepare Lawrence for his parent’s decline by talking to him about the natural process of aging which eventually leads to death. My grandmother, mother, aunt, and step-mother were nurses and I had spent a great deal of time with the elderly. Even so, I had no idea of what was in store for us.

To be continued….

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